China S Story In Myth Legend And Annals

129 564

CHINA'S STORY

IN MYTH, UttiKNI), AND ANNALS

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

PORCELAIN PLATE
The carp becoming a dngon

CHINA'S STORY

IN MYTH, LEGEND* AND ANNALS

By William 811iot Griffis Revised Edition

With <sfdditional Chapters by <^sfrtbur Wafauorth

BOSTON AND NEW YORK.

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

3f)e 5&f faenrffce 3&tt3$ Camfofoge

1935

COPYRIGHT, igil AND 1022, B7 WILLIAM ELLIOT GRIFTIS
COPYRIGHT, 1935, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED INCLUDING THE RIGHT TO REPRODUCE
THIS BOOK OR PARTS THEREOF IS ANY FORM

CAMBRIDGE MASSACHUSETTS
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

PKEFACE

HEREWITH I send forth a little book on China,
which I trust may help Asian and American peo-
ple to understand each other better. History
shows that the human nature of the Chinese and
of ourselves is the same. I have gone below the
surface, letting the Chinese speak for themselves,
chiefly through their myths, folk-lore, art, litera-
ture, institutions, and annals.

My initial interest in China came through tra-
ditions of my grandfather, one of the first, as a
merchant navigator, to carry the American flag
to Canton, thence bringing home pretty curiosi-
ties, which, with my father's stories of his many
voyages, provoked a desire to know more of the
mighty hermit nation. I visited many times the
great Chinese Museum in my native city, Phila-
delphia, formed by Nathan Dunn, an American
merchant long in China. There were life-sized
groups of human figures, male and female, pic-
turing all classes, from emperor and mandarins
to cobblers and beggars, representations of shops
and crafts, and a varied collection of genuine ob-
jects of use and beauty, intelligently selected and
brought from the Middle Kingdom. Two Chinese
gentlemen, in silk and nankeen dress and bam-

Ti PREFACE

boo hats, explained things. Even then I longed to
know more of what the Chinese thought and felt,
than of what they made, ate, bought, or sold.
Happily, besides browsing in my father's library
and hearing him tell of his experiences in Pacific
seas, I had the pleasure, later, of living, as pio-
neer educator, four years in the Far East. I saw
the Chinese also in Japan and California, met
and talked with scores, possibly hundreds, of men
and women long resident in or coming from nearly
every part of China, and with scholars who had
spent their lives in original research.

The witness of a single person, or book, concern-
ing so vast and varied a land as China is worth
but little. Yet complex as is its hoary civilization,
the few leading principles holding its millions to-
gether are very simple. Sympathy is the key to
interpretation. Every age has had its ruling ideas.
China, to the critical student, does not present
that picture of monotonous inflexibility which
Occidentals too often proud of their dense ig-
norance of this great country and civilization
conjure up and apparently delight to dwell on.

Though in the course of years digesting the
standard and ephemeral works on China and
making some acquaintance with its texts, I have
relied mostly for help upon scholars whom I have
known personally, at home or in the Orient, such
as Messrs. Legge, Williams, Allen, Macgowan,
McCartee, Williamson, Martin, Tung Wing,

PREFACE Til

Hart, Mayers, Dennys, Ross, Holcombe, Wilson,
Hirth, Pott, Schlegel, de Groot, Cordier, Terrien
de la Couperie, and others, or as correspondents,
too many to name, besides Chinese, Japa-
nese, and Korean native men of learning, who have
kindly answered many questions. The limits of
this little book permit only an outline of refer-
ence, description, and philosophy of the subject.
My ambition is to lead my readers to the study
of more serious works on China.

The West has as much to learn as to teach, to
receive as to give, from the Orient. May this na-
tion with an unexampled past and the United
States of America ever abide in peace and friend-
ship.

w. E. a.

ITHACA, K T.

PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION

DURING the years since the publication of Dr.
GriffiVs work, a great many new books have
made valuable contributions to our understanding
of the Chinese people. Nevertheless, to the best
of our knowledge China's Story still remains the
shortest and most elementary volume from which
"griffins" (as the uninitiated are known to "Old
China Hands") may get their bearings when first

viii PREFACE

they face the ebb and flow of China's history and
culture. Moreover, it presents a unique approach
to China for young people either in connection with
school history courses or in their general reading.
In view of the important place which the book
occupies in our literature on China, and in view
of the epochal changes of the last twenty years, it
has seemed desirable to revise Dr. Griffis's work
carefully, to provide three new chapters dealing
with modern China, and to use new illustrations.
By consulting such standard authorities as Latour-
ette and Lattimore, as well as the writings of many
specialists and various symposiums that have been
published during the past year or two, an effort
has been made to give an unbiased and accurate
survey of all important phases of Chinese life
during the period since the Revolution of 1911.
To readers who wish to pursue the subject beyond
the scope of this work, we recommend the books
of the authorities mentioned above and also the
faithful portrayal of life in China to be found in
the novels of Mrs. Buck and Mrs. Hobart.

THE PUBLISHERS
September, 1934

CONTENTS

I. PRIMEVAL CHINA 3

II. ORIENTAL AND OCCIDENTAL CIVILIZATION 13

III. "WHO AND WHENCE? 22

IV. THE TARTARS 33

V. ABOUT THE BEGINNING OF THINGS . . 43

VI. THE EVOLUTION OF GOVERNMENT . . 58

VII. THE FEUDAL SYSTEM 69

VIII. CHINA UNIFIED : THE GREAT WALL . 82

IX. THE EMPIRE AND THE NORTHERN BAR-
BARIANS 98

X. THE RISE AND FALL OF DYNASTIES . . 108

XI. THE ERA OF PRINTING AND LITERATURE 121

XII. CHINA'S EXPERIMENT IN SOCIALISM . . 135

XIII. CHINA INVADED BY THE MONGOLS . 146

XIV. WHAT THE MONGOLS DID FOR CHINA . 156
XV. THE MING EMPERORS .... 167

XVI. THE MANCECUS AND EUROPEANS . . 179

XVII. EAST AND WEST IN CONFLICT . . 189

XVIII. TAI PINGS AND TRADE WAR * . . 198

x CONTENTS

XIX. THE ARROW ANT> FLOWERY FLAG . . 206

XX. PEACE TUSKER HEAVEN .... 220

XXI. JAPAN, KOREA, AND DUAL SOVEREIGNTY 229

XXII. OLD DOGMAS BLOWN TO ATOMS. . . 241

XXIH. THE BOXER RIOTS 255

XXIV. THE ALLIES MAKE WAR ON CHINA . . 265
XXV. THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR : ITS RESULTS 275

XXVI. THE REPUBLIC 279

XXVII. FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE REPUBLIC . 294:
XXVIII. NEW WAYS OF LIFE .... 31O

OUTLINE OF CHRONOLOGY 323

. 327

ILLUSTRATIONS

PORCELAIN PLATE . . ". . . Frontispiece
The carp becoming a dragon

ERODED HILLS WEST OF SHANHATKWAN ALONG THE
COURSE OF THE GREAT WALL AND NEAR THE
HEADWATERS OF TTTB SHIH-HO .... 24

SHANHAIKWAN (* Mountain-Sea-Gate ') . . 30

"Wliere the Great Wall -went down, to the sea

CIRCULAR HOUSE, INHABITED BY THE MEMBERS
OF ONE CLAN 62

MARBLE TABLET IN THE SUMMER PALACE NEAR
PEIPING 90

Designed by Kien Lung, one of the greatest of the
Manchu Emperors

WIND Box GORGE, SHOWING ROCK STRATA . . 106
ROCK: SCULPTURED BY THE BUDDHISTS . . 126
PISHING VILLAGE IN FUKIEN PROVINCE . . 130

A TYPICAL CONFUCIAN TEMPLE IN A PROVINCIAL
CAPITAL nsr CENTRAL CHINA .... 144

TIGHT-ROPE WALKERS FROM MONGOLIA PROVIDE
ENTERTAINMENT FOR A STREET CROWD IN CEN-
TRAL CHINA 156

MEMORIAL AVENUE, MING TOMBS (ELEPHANTS) . 168
A CHINESE FAMILY IN SZECHUEN . . . 190

BASKET-CHAIR AND MATTING SHOP . . . 200

THE 'MORNING FREIGHT' ENTERING CHANGSECA,
CAPITAL OF HUNAN PROVINCE .... 214

LEGATION STREET IN FRONT OF THE BUILDING OF
THE NATIONAL CITY BANK OF NEW YORK, LEGA-
TION QUARTER, PEIPING 266

THE MAGIC OF THE 'FOREIGN DEVIL' . . . 320

Schoolboys at Yale-in-China leave their play to see
the tryout of a new fire-extinguisher

CHINA'S STORY

IN MYTH, LEGEND, AND ANNAIS

CHINA'S STORY

CHAPTER I

PRIMEVAL CHINA

CHINA is the oldest living nation in the world.
Of all in the human family, her people have the
longest story. To-day China is like an elderly
gentleman, hale and hearty, despite his years, not
liking to change and yet ready for new things.
The danger is now that he may go too fast.

A wrinkled old man does not look like the rosy
infant he once was. Yet " the child is father of
the man," In going back four thousand years, we
must not expect to find anything like the Chinese
Empire of to-day. In size, population, manner of
life, likes and dislikes, hopes and fears, the China
of youth will not resemble the mighty nation of
the twentieth century. There have been changes
in food, dress, style of houses, government, and
in religion, philosophy, belief, and opinions. China
is neither inscrutable nor in a state of arrested
development.

We shall study each age during the many dy-
nasties, so as to distinguish the features of a
society based always on land and labor, but ever

4 CHINA'S STORY

developing with new inventions. Its great men
and women, the novelties and characteristics of
the times, the amusements and tastes of each era
will be noted. We shall see that those things
which we have always associated in our minds
with China did not come all at once. The oldest
of them were at one time new. Their introduction
brought delightful surprise to those who liked and
disgust to those who disliked them. In China, as
in Europe, new things were always opposed by
those who thought them harmful, and were wel-
comed by those who voted them good.

Chinese civilization, which seems to-day so
fixed, and which our people imagine has always
been very much the same as it is now, is in reality
an affair of long and slow evolution. Not more
different in their appearance to-day from their
humble beginnings ages ago are the luscious
peach, the splendid rose, the race-horse, the latest
triumphs of science yes, even our men and wo-
men than are the Chinese gentleman and lady
from their savage originals. The world of experi-
ence and the outlook of fortieth-century China are
vastly other than those of her cradle days. In the
far-off beginning of things Chinese there were no
rice, wheat, oats, silk, cotton, tea, paper, porcelain,
pagodas, priests, temples, idols, letters, writing,
books, jade, ivory, kites, falconry, cormorant fish-
ing, fire-crackers, or coins with a square hole in

PRIMEVAL CHINA 5

them. Then there was no Buddhism, and very little
folk-lore or legend. There was even a time, farther
back, when the people knew nothing of fire,
woven clothing, houses, medicine, domesticanimals,
musical instruments, the institution of marriage,
or the measurement of time. The natives were
savages as wild as were our own far-off an-
cestors in the caves of the geological ages.
Then, instead of being full of tilled fields, tea-
gardens, towns, and villages, China was one
vast forest, with swamps tenanted by ferocious
wild beasts.

The originals of the fantastic creatures now
known only in mythology or fairyland then lived
on the earth with the men who were the distant
fathers of the Chinese people. Making allowance
for what myth-makers and artists have done to
change or embellish the reality, some of the so-
called " mythical monsters " were once as real as
are elephants and gorillas. Chinese wonder-tales
contain little more of exaggeration than do those
of our own forbears. Nor are the beliefs of the
common people, in Canton and Mukden, one
whit more absurd than those of our own fore-
fathers.

Science and the sure witness of writing, art,
architecture, customs, and traditions, when criti-
cally studied, show that the Chinese have followed
the course of nature. The great has developed out

6 CHINA'S STORY

of the little, according to the divine formula o
seed, blade, and ear. Nevertheless, most Chinese
writers still follow the fashions of an earlier world
of thought and ways of reasoning. They tell us
that the golden age was in the unmeasured aeons
of the past. They place the best time of the world
millions of years back, in the interval between the
beginnings of heaven and earth and the coming
of Fu Hi, whom they honor as their own great
civilizer. To them the past is more honorable than
the modern age. In it lived holy and semi-divine
beings.

Entering Chinese temples, we discern both the
first heavenly beings and the initial human makers
of society, and are at once struck with the peculi-
arities of native art. Naturally these first men are
Chinese, to all appearances. Their expression,
style of hair and headdress, their jewels and orna-
ments, the fashion of their clothes and boots are
not what we should give to our ancestors.

Yet we are like the Chinese. Although we do
not dress our Adam and Eve in anything but fig
leaves, we make them in their faces look like
people we meet on Broadway. The first man and
woman would be represented with different color
of skin, according as an American, an Indian, or
a Mongol should picture them. So in Chinese art
there are " Jewel Lords," the " Three Pure Ones,"
and Panku, the first man, besides the " god " of
tides, of war, of agriculture, etc., who have faces,

PRIMEVAL CHINA 7

dress, and posture according to Chinese taste and
propriety.

In a word, the Chinese do no more than do we
with our far-off ancestors, heroes, saints, and
mighty folk, whom we idealize as if they lived in
London, Boston, or Chicago. When we under-
stand the artist's method of representing faces,
dress, drapery, clouds, trees, mountains, water,
bridges, and whatever goes into the making of a
picture, whether Chinese or European, we soon
learn what ideas he would convey. We mate a
difference between what is real, or supposed to be
real, and what is imaginary. We soon note what
the painter or sculptor has added for effect, or to
heighten interest, to give local color, or to make
what he thinks will suit the taste of his patrons
and give us something pretty or popular. Myths
and fairy tales usually keep in what is pleasant
and leave out what is disagreeable. This is art
the praise of life.

The Chinese have, therefore, little trouble in
comprehending their own pictures, nor need we
have, when we know the mind and method of the
artists in Nanking or Amoy. By patiently study-
ing Oriental art we learn much and enjoy a great
deal, beside getting truth and understanding his-
tory much more clearly. Such a method, with
text, picture, inscription, architecture, games,
plays, and customs, is more satisfactory than read-
ing newspapers or accepting what foreigners have

8 CHINA'S STORY

guessed at. Such a plan we try to follow in this
little book.

In telling the story of the oldest nation, it is
not at all necessary to use many Chinese names
or words. These sound uncouth to us, because in
our minds they have no meaning or association of
ideas. Only by turning Kung Fu Tse that is,
the learned Professor Kung and the name of
his pupil Meng Tse into Latin, do " Confucius "
and " Mencius " sound familiar to our ears. We
can tell the story of China better in simple Eng-
lish than by appearing learned in the use of odd
terms and many dates.

The Chinese are just as human as we are. They
are moved by the same feelings and stirred by the
same passions. It is not his curious dress, eye
slant, shaven forehead, or heelless velvet shoes
that make a Chinese man. Nor do trousers, wob-
bly slippers with the toes turned up, and loose
clothes, that are purposely made so as to hide the
marks of sex, make a Chinese woman. Neither
will mills and machine-shops, telephones, railways,
aeroplanes, automobiles, or steel battleships make
any difference in the deviltry or sainthood of
China. A native would be still Chinese even if he
adopted all our customs, fashions, manners, in-
ventions, and varieties of religion. The real man
and woman in the Middle Kingdom can be fully
described in English.

In the past these people taught us a great many

PRIMEVAL CHINA 9

things, some of them so long ago that we have
forgotten how they came to us. The Chinese have
probably invented and originated more than any
other people with whose history we are acquainted.
The civilization of China is her own, while ours
is only a new edition, revised and corrected, of
former civilizations.

The names of this long-lived empire and grand-
mother of many nations, historically the oldest
State in the world, are numerous and suggest-
ive. Her own people do not know or use the
term China, or Chinese, yet this name occurs in
the ancient books of India. Isaiah knew of " the
land of Sinim." Of native names the most com-
mon, perhaps, means the Middle Kingdom, or the
Central Empire, or the Central Flowery Land
that is, the civilized country surrounded by pupil
and vassal nations. All other countries lie on the
edge of the map, while China fills the page. Dis-
tant nations look like microbes, or parasites. " All
under Heaven " means the Chinese Empire. It is
often seen on bank-notes.

This method of atlas-making is not so very dif-
ferent from our own. We often give a page to one
State, or even a county, and then in a similar
space we represent all the Chinas. The empire
holding one fourth of the human race is squeezed
into a space that one could cover with a teacup,
while Japan looks like a caterpillar.

Among the names which the natives themselves

10 CHINA'S STORY

do not use, but are known in Europe, several
forms of this word being found in the Bible, is
Seres, meaning silk. Sinae means " the Chinas/'
having the idea of plurality, or of many countries.
In Eussia, Khitai or Khata became "Cathay,'*
with which we are all familiar. Tennyson has
said, " Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle
of Cathay." By this he meant a long, indefinite
period without change.

Another name is Heavenly Dynasty, whicb
some foreigners have translated Celestial Empire,
but the odd term " Celestials " is not a native
idea. The official name, used in Japan, as in
China, means the Country Ruled by a Line of
Rulers of Heavenly Origin. This notion is not
exclusively Chinese. Europeans long believed that
czars, emperors, and other rulers enjoy the special
grace of the Deity, because of their form of gov-
ernment, teaching this as religious truth. As the
Tang Dynasty (A. D. 618-905) was one of the
most celebrated in history, and very brilliant;, a
common name for China is the Hills (or the
country) of Tang.

No one can understand China unless he knows
the variation, in features and limbs, ideas and
speech, mind and body, between the northern and
the southern Chinese. They are quite as different
as are English and Scotch. Only the southern
Chinamen have thus far gone abroad in large
numbers. In the south the people call themselves

PRIMEVAL CHINA 11

the Men of Tang, while in the north their favorite
title is the Men of Han, after the famous dynasty
B. C. 206-220 A. D. The people also speak of them-
selves as the Black-haired Race, or the Sons of
Han. Their beloved home, in contrast with the
outlying lands, is the Central Flowery Land. For
the Country of the Hundred Families they get
very homesick when abroad. When in a mood
like that suggested by our " Hail Columbia," or
Fourth of July, the Chinaman talks of the glo-
rious Hia, an ancient dynasty. A few years ago,
in order to compliment the reigning Tsin (Pure)
dynasty in Peking, they called their country the
Great Pure Kingdom.

There are pious ways of speaking of China from
a religious or exalted point of view. The Bud-
dhists, who came from India, call it by the Hindoo
name the Land of Dawn. The Mahometans, who
entered from the West, speak of the Land of the
East. When we want a Latin adjective meaning
Chinese, we call the mixed writing common in
Japan, Sinieo-Japanese, and the peoples which
have received Chinese culture the Sinitic nations.
A man who is familiar with the Lingua Siniea,
or Chinese language, is a sinologue, because
learned in the wonderful script that the average
American sees only on tea-boxes or in " China-
town " of New York or San Francisco.

Nevertheless, Chinese characters, which speak
to the eye, can be just as well used to write Eng-

12 CHINA'S STORY

lish or German as to express native thought.
China has no alphabet based, on sound, nor a syl-
labary like the Japanese or Ethiopia. Her writing
consists of ideographs, which were once pictures
of the objects represented, to which a sound was
attached, so that the characters represent things
or stand for words in themselves. Speaking to the
eye, the Chinese written language is the richest in
the world. It means even more in sight than in
sound. There are no ideas in science, philosophy,
or invention that cannot be expressed in Chinese
script.

Let us, then, study China, allowing the Chinese
as far as possible to speak for themselves.

CHAPTER H

OKIENTAL AND OCCIDENTAL CIVILIZATION

IN the evolution of Eastern and Western civil-
ization there is a notable difference. Chinese so-
ciety is like a mighty boulder. From its unknown
rock-bed, after separation and movement in roll-
ing down the stream of ages of experience, it took
long ago the shape which it still retains.

In contrast, the younger European civilization
is more like a piece of conglomerate rock, in which
many diverse elements have been fused, or forced
by pressure into something like unity. The Chi-
nese have had many forms of government and vast
social, industrial, religious, and political experi-
ence. China is the old man among nations, and we
younger ones may well apply our own proverb
concerning fools, and about what young men think
and old men know.

China's longevity explains why the average
Chinese was not until recently interested or curi-
ous to know about other men and countries. The
gentleman of the old school still refuses to accept
all that he hears. His many and long trials of things
good and bad make him cautious. He does not
argue concerning cause and effect in quite the way
we do. He does not enjoy answering the kind of

14: CHINA'S STORY

queries that we put to him. They seem to him to be
jokes or conundrums.

So long as even the wisest of the Chinese lived
within their own boundaries, dwelling in one world
of fixed ideas, it was not possible for them even to
conceive of another state of society as good as their
own. They could not understand the merits of
foreign men and things, even when these were
brought to them. Such outlandish novelties were
as strange to them as Chinese chopsticks and
"joss" houses are to us, even though "joss" de-
rives ultimately from the Latin word Deus,or God.
To the Chinese such things as telescopes, micro-
scopes, steam engines, and the various machines
of war and peace, which require the forces of gun-
powder, modern chemicals, steam, or electricity to
operate them, seemed only oddities or toys for
amusement. No practical good could be discerned
in these importations of " the outside barbarians."
The men of the West were considered good black-
smiths or cunning mechanics, but not necessarily
refined persons, with politeness, culture, religion,
or morals. It was necessary that Chinese gentle-
men should go abroad and see humanity, iu all its
phases, before even the surface of thought could
be ruffled or even a suggestion of change be
made. It was still more important that young peo-
ple, more susceptible and sensitive, should learn
about the new kind of world and man outside of
China. After numbers of them had absorbed West-

COMPARATIVE CIVILIZATION 15

era culture, it was possible that an interior move-
ment looking to reform should take place.

Atlast it seems that this time has come. The seed
planted by American and European teachers long
ago, the persistent work o missionaries on the
soil, and the education of Chinese lads and girls
beyond sea have borne fruit. The introduction of
new ideas by means of trade and commerce and
the distribution of printed matter, the wonders of
science, the commercial assault, the invasion of the
steam engine, the startling events of war, and the
near presence of Japan, " a neighbor-disturbing
nation," now the most eager pupil of the Anglo-
Saxon peoples, have roused China to new life.
Now the rate of movement seems almost danger-
ously rapid.

There is hope for the Central Empire, because
it is based on the family. The unit of Chinese so-
ciety is not the individual, but the household, the
result of forty centuries of harmony. The civil-
ization of the Orient is communal, that of the
Occident is individual. Filial piety is the corner-
stone of the nation, and the promise attached to
the commandment, "Honor thy father and thy
mother," is as valid for the Chinese people who
still own their native soil as for landless IsraeL

The Japanese have already reversed the general
opinion of the Western world concerning the capa-
bilities of dark-skinned peoples. The battle on the
Yalu with the Eussians, in 1904, sounded the note

16 CHINA'S STORY

o hope to all Asia. Their victory made obsolete
hundreds of books written in disparagement of
Asiatics.

China seems destined to do a slower but vastly
greater work even than Japan. Mother of all civ-
ilization east of the Ganges, the world's debt to
her, already incalculable, is to be manifold greater.
China will conquer every conqueror that attempts
her conquest. The Chinese love liberty, equality,
and fraternity. If treated honorably and with
righteousness, they will enrich the world with their
gifts, graces, and inheritances. The Middle King-
dom has for ages been the source of blessings to
surrounding nations. A reformed China will be a
blessing to the whole race.

There are great, deep currents of sympathy and
unity between the Orient and the Occident, beneath
the apparent and even sometimes stormy differ-
ences on the surface. Chinese human nature in its
depths is exactly like human nature everywhere,
including our own variety. Mythology, poetry, lit-
erature, and all the old and pre-ancient products
of mind show this, as well as do the responses of
the Chinese mind to new visions and messages con-
taining truth, which knows no climate, time, or
space, and outgrows all names and labels. All this
argues favorably for a reformed China.

Apart from the various religions which the Chi-
nese have accepted, let us take an illustration from
popular art.

COMPARATIVE CIVILIZATION 17

China is the Land of the Dragon and bears this
symbol of power on her yellow flag. Yet all over
the earth, among primitive peoples, the dragon has
been the supreme symbol of living, concrete force.
The Chinese dragon in all its varieties is well
worthy of study. On sculpture, painting, dress,
flag, it is almost omnipresent, being chief of the
four supernatural animals. It is so much like the
geological creatures of a world that has passed
away, that we are forced to believe that it is but
the development, in fancy, of an actual organism
once upon the earth. There are nine or ten varie-
ties of this imaginary creature that carries in his
structure a cyclopedia of all the forces of life, with
their powers of motion and of destruction. Of one,
for example, it is written : " When earth is piled
up in mountains, wind and rain arise, but when
water comes together into streams, the Kiao dragon
comes into being."

Chief of all scaly reptiles, the dragon wields the
power of transformation. It can render itself vis-
ible and invisible at pleasure. It lives partly in
the waters of the earth and partly in the waters
above the earth, in the spring ascending to the
clouds, in the autumn burying itself in the watery
depths. At will it reduces itself to the size of a
silkworm, or it is swollen until it fills the space
of heaven and earth. It can rise into the clouds or
sink into the ocean deeps. The watery principle of
the atmosphere, mist, cloud, dew, rain, etc., is par-

18 CHINA'S STORY

ticularly associated with one dragon, but another
of different nature controls the earth's surface.

In art it is not usual to represent the dragon as
completely visible, but to hide parts of his body or
limbs in cloud or mist, to suggest rather than fully
to portray.

The dragon can climb, fly, crawl, and run. It
has tooth, claw, wing, tail, and every equipment
belonging to beast, bird, fish, or reptile. Of the
four sorts of principal dragons, the celestial va-
riety guards the mansions of the gods and sup-
ports them so that they do not fall. The spiritual
dragon causes winds to blow and produces rain
for the benefit of mankind. The dragon of earth
marks out the courses of rivers and streams. There
is a bob-tailed dragon that sports iu the whirlwind
and is credited with special power in destroying
houses and cities.

The dragon is associated with the East, with
springtime, and with the eastern quarter of the
heavens. In the popular belief, there are four
dragon kings, each having dominion over one of
the four seas which form the border of the habitable
earth. The palaces in which these kings live have
striking names. There is also a dragon which does
not mount up to heaven, and another without horns.
The name of the Riu Kiu (Loo Choo) Islands,
Sleeping Dragon, suggests one that has not yet
risen to the skies. Most honorable of all is the
yellow dragon. That which has five claws can

COMPARATIVE CIVILIZATION 19

be used only by the emperor or on imperial pro-
perty.

It is not wonderful that such a divinely endowed
creature, which holds within himself all the powers
known to life of any sort, should occupy a great
place in Chinese art and story. The dragon is the
symbol not only of power, but of guardianship. It
is often seen in carving, sculpture, and painting,
on gateways, posts, and temple ornaments. At
wells, fountains, eaves, conduits, in gardens and
other places where water spouts, flows, or is stored
up, we may expect to meet with the stone, bronze,
or iron dragon represented in various forms, while
from paper, porcelain, and in pictorial art he
greets us continually.

In philosophy the dragon is the emblem of power
manifesting itself. In popular notion the dragon
is held responsible for a great deal that we should
express by other symbols or in different forms of
speech. In the earlier world of thought, in the in-
fancy of the race, before there were scales, mea-
sures, laboratories, written figures, or mathemat-
ics, all great manifestations of power and strange
events, as well as human heroes, were described in
fairy tales and mythology. Only in this way was
explanation possible. Thus a rude sort of science,
outside of the books, grows up. Little children
who cannot know anything about the invisible
laws of the universe, or understand machinery
or its motive power, have things wonderful ex-

20 CHINA'S STOKY

plained to them by means of things living, that is,
of animals who talk, and of men and women who
can change themselves, or their friends or enemies,
into something else, and one thing into another.
In the myths the heroes and heroines can over-
come all obstacles by magic. Now to people who
have never seen and cannot know anything about
such wonders as locomotives, telegraphs, steam
engines, photographs, and a thousand other strange
inventions of an age of science, explanations must
be made in the language and forms of thought
with which they are acquainted.

With these illustrations we can appreciate the
fact that the uneducated masses of China not
ten per cent of whom can read books believe
easily the most absurd stories circulated about
foreigners. Indeed, they quite equal or excel the
worst of our own people who are ignorant of the
Chinese. The amazing things actually done, or
alleged to be done, do not seem any more won-
derful than what they have been accustomed to
believe.

Let us consider a Chinese traveler in America,
but not yet understanding how the forces of
steam, and electricity are harnessed and made to
obey the will of man. On going back home and
telling of the Pennsylvania Railroad, for example,
with engines going at lightning speed, drawing
crowds of people in long trains of cars thousands
of miles a day, but also killing men by accident

COMPARATIVE CIVILIZATION 21

daily, he might describe this as a steel dragon
stretching from Pittsburg to New York. The
monster is able to carry on its back every day
thousands of people, but it requires for its food
a man or two every day, devouring human beings
very much like the dragons of mythology. So
also in the great disasters from storm and flood,
tidal waves or volcanoes, which overwhelm human
lives, and in the dangers and deaths from mining,
or by fire, gas, explosion, or poisonous fumes,
the uneducated Chinese sees the work of the great
offended " god," dragon, or some other irritated
creature, where we should look only for the phe-
nomena of nature.

The power of the dragon is beneficent also.
Its nobler side is shown especially in relation to
water. Life, fertility, food, comfort, and beauty
come from the cloud and rain. The sweet influ-
ences that drop from the skies and descend from
the mountain are for the happiness of man.
Hence there are dragons which are associated
with happy omens and permanent blessing.

Critical comparison of the root ideas of East
and West, whether of men or of dragons, shows
differences. In European and Semitic lore, the
hero overcomes and slays the dragons, man's
wit and valor prevailing over brute fierceness and
strength. This human phase of struggle is as nearly
absent from the Oriental lore as is praise from
their worship.

CHAPTER HI

WHO AOT WHENCE?

THE people called Chinese are a composite
formed of hundreds of tribes. The Chinaman,
like the American, is made up of many kinds of
man. The reason why there is no common spoken
language all over the empire is because of these
ancient bodies of foreigners, now fused into the
mass, whose thought and speech have made dia-
lects, just as in Southern Europe are many lan-
guages.

To the "griffin" or foreigner newly arrived
on Chinese soil all Chinese look exactly alike.
Even the traveler who penetrates the interior
can only by keen observation and long experience
distinguish a Mongol from a Manchuor a Tibetan
from a Cantonese. The expert also is puzzled
when many subjects of the Chinese emperor
gather in one company from all parts. When
they dress in foreign clothes, few Europeans can
tell whether the men whom they see are Japanese,
Koreans, Annamese, or Pekingese.

In a word, in China a great many different
kinds of men of various origins have been so
blended together by one social system and one
general method of dress, manners, and Jife that

WHO AND WHENCE? 23

they cannot at first be distinguished. Never
elsewhere on earth did so many millions of
people become so much like one another. If all
the tribes and nations of humanity were to stream
past a certain point, every fourth person would
be a Chinese.

All this, however, is very different from the
reality in early ages. So many human beings have
been made like one another, first, because of a
wonderful social system that, like a crucible set
in white-hot anthracite, melts into uniformity
whatever falls into it ; and, second, because they
were so long separated from the rest of the world
by the great impassable things in nature. Steppes
and deserts on the north, high mountains on the
west, and the ocean on the east walled them in.
In the days before the magnetic compass, when
keeled ships did not exist, and there were no routes
by water, except those within sight of the coast,
the fearsome Sea of Darkness sufficed to keep
strangers away. The mountains shut in and kept
out, and on the deserts men could not live. China
thus escaped conquest.

So, as in a walled garden, or like squirrels in
a cage, having a similar environment and living
on much the same food, it is no wonder that the
Chinese have become as much alike as they are.
The " Hundred Families," as they call themselves,
formed for ages a self -centred hermit nation. Yet
there are mighty differences in China, even as

24: CHINA'S STORY

inside the forest there are various trees, and these
we shall consider. Let us now look at their home.

The empire on the map is shaped like a rough
triangle with its point toward Europe, its jagged
base resting along the sea, while the irregular
side lines from east to west converge in Central
Asia, near Kashgar.

From west to east the land consists of height,
slope, and level. Its physical geography is more
interesting than any description. China owns the
roof of the world, which is Tibet. There we find
a region, cold, full of mountains and of the sand
and gravel which have been ground from them.
It is rich in ice and snow, with a few fertile plains
and many valleys. On this plateau are the cradles
of Asia's great rivers. Those flowing outside the
mountain walls make the Ganges, Irawaddy, Sal-
win, and Mekong. Those which rush eastward
across China, cutting deep gorges through the in-
cline before reaching level land, are the Whang
Ho, Yang-tse, and Si rivers.

This long slope, or vast inclined plane, through
which three great rivers have worn their way,
furnishes the second division or set of altitudes
in the great empire. Three immense gorges, or
defiles, like mighty canals, have thus been cut out
during the long ages. The billions of tons of
earth which these streams have brought down
from the higher land have been deposited below,
forming the great fertile plains, both inland and

ERODED HILLS VEST OF SHANHAIKWAN ALONG THE COURSE OF THE
GREAT WALL AND NEAR THE HEADWATERS OF THE SH1H-HO

WHO AND WHENCE? 25

along the sea, on which the larger part of the
population of China is found to-day. A steady
river of wind also, blowing from the west, after
ages of activity, has deposited the vast yellow beds
of loess, or loam, of various height, forming the
great plain of northern China, on which many tens
of millions of people live.

Thus the landscape is a triple formation, con-
sisting of plateau, incline, and sea-level ; the first
averaging in altitude 12,000 feet ; the second be-
ing roughly from 3000 to 6000 feet high ; while
the densely populated rolling land rises from 600
to 3000 feet above the sea-plain. Not a little of
the fertile soil in the northeast, in the Yang-tse
basin, and along the West River valley to the
south, is almost on the level of the sea. The
Yang-tse Eiver is " the girdle of China," is most
navigable of all China's streams, and is in the
centre of its largest trade.

Large areas of the empire are uninhabited, or
sparsely settled. A redistribution of population is
needed in order that waste land shall be tilled
and the pressure on the food -supply relieved.
The replanting of the forests with greater variety
of grain food, other than rice, the opening of the
mines, the exploitation of the metallic and mineral
wealth, and the building of railroads, making all
regions accessible, will accomplish this with bene-
fit to all. The masses are crowded in river valleys
and on plains where rice is most easily cultivated*

26 CHINA'S STORY

The Chinese suffer today because they abused
nature in early times. With the prodigality of
youth, and never thinking of want, they cut down
their forests without replanting. Now, over large
areas the rain falls, but runs off at once as if from
a roof, carrying down into the rivers and the sea
billions of tons of earth that would be fertile if
kept in place with its moisture retained. From
the treeless hills, and from land robbed of its
roots and underbrush for fuel, the soil is blown
out to sea by the winds. To clothe the hills again
with Nature's covering is China's duty. This lack
of forests is the cause of alternate droughts and
floods, which cause untold suffering and the loss
of many millions of lives because of famine and
drowning. China needs the engineer, the forester,
the miner, and the railway builder. She may then
be able to support a vastly greater population, for
no land on earth of equal area exceeds China
proper in fertility.

The various countries make up an empire con-
taining one third of Asia, or about four and a
half million square miles. No one knows its popu-
lation, which is supposed by many to be over four
hundred millions, but some think it less. The
government claims a total of four hundred and
eighty-six millions.

Notable differences exist, not only between the
people of the North and those of the South, but
also between the highlanders, the valley men, and

WHO AND WHENCE? 27

those dwelling on the sea-plains. There is not, and
never has been, a uniform speech. Writing and
literature have always been the national bond.
Indeed, the history of China will show us that in
no country in the world have letters had a more
profound influence, not only on the social, but
also on the political development of a nation.
Dialects arose in China very much as did French,
Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and other Eomance
languages of Southern Europe. The speech of
the conquerors won, but the old ideas, idioms,
thought-forms, and much of the vocabulary re-
mained. Chinese dialects are as truly languages
as are those in Europe derived from the Latin.
The " Mandarin," created from the written forms,
is the standard of the spoken language.

Nobody knows whence or how the first people,
the primeval fathers of the Chinese, came into
the old home, but all traditions point to their
entrance from the West. The fortieth parallel of
north latitude is the oldest pathway of nations.
They passed from central Asia down the valley
of the Tarina, where are still famous cities, through
Turkestan, across the Gobi desert, and into the
valleys of the Yellow River.

This great stream, called the Hoang Ho, or
Whang Ho, flows southeastwardly from the high-
lands of Tibet. After cutting out mighty gorges
in the long slope, it makes a tremendous bend to
the north. Then flowing southward, it turns east-

28 CHINA'S STOEY

ward from its great loop and debouches at pres-
ent into the Gulf of Pechili. It has changed its
course very many times, so that a map of the old
channels, now dry and become fields, looks like a
tangled skein of thread. Oftener, in ages past, it
flowed into the sea at different points north of the
promontory province of Shantung, but in many
other cases it leaped southward, occasionally emp-
tying its waters only a few miles away from its
greater comrade, the Yang-tse. Its yellow color,
whence its name, reveals its history. For ages
past, " China's Sorrow " has wrought vast destruc-
tion of property, ruining houses and fertile fields
and drowning millions of human beings, or bring-
ing them to their death through famine. It con-
stantly tends to raise its bed, and needs a greater
engineer than China has yet produced to curb it.
In history it has been what the Rhine is to "Western
Europe.

Into the Yellow Kiver valley, before written
history, bands of people entered with their faces
to the rising sun. Industrious, peacefully inclined,
ready to learn and to progress, they showed very
early a capacity for self-development, and began
an evolution, through ceaseless industry, toward
the great triumphs of to-day. While most of what
is Chinese has been evolved from within, much
also has been imported from the West. We cannot
say how much, though some have tried to tell us.
China's astronomy and measurements of time are

WHO AND WHENCE? 29

certainly borrowed from the same source as ours,
Chaldea.

The Chinese is frugal, temperate, and laborious.
He runs to muscle rather than to nerve, and to
body rather than to brain. Whereas the Hindoo
is small of limb and frame, and large in head de-
velopment, the Chinese tends to stockiness. The
typical man of India enjoys intellectual discipline,
but while the normal Chinese cultivates his mind,
he does not give himself to abstractions. He lives
on the earth. The mind of Confucius rose no
higher.

Besides its fertility and variety of soil and
scenery, China proper, where most of the people
live, contains eighteen provinces and one third of
the empire. It is well watered, and has many lake
regions, which are yet to become playgrounds for
the world's tourists. China proper is shaped, very
appropriately, like a great round -bodied teapot,
with one foot resting upon Hai-nan Island and
another upon Burma. Shantung is its spout,
while the eyes for the loops of the handle are the
provinces of Chili on the east and Kangsi on the
northwest.

Tibet, the cold highland of Asia and the cradle
of its rivers, long the dwelling-place of the Grand
Lama, and mysterious because unknown, the
Pure West, or Paradise of the Buddhists, the
land of sheep and the yak, has only in late years
been penetrated by daring explorers. It con-

30 CHINA'S STORY

tains 812,000 square miles, and about six million
people.

In the extreme northwest, and north of Tibet,
are East Turkestan and Hi, or Sungaria. Here,
as in Mongolia, are great desert plateaus of dry
sand. Of their early history we know but little,
yet they were once populous. Beneath their drift-
ing sands and dust are many buried cities. The
name Gobi means " dried-up sea." Here water is
worth more than gold, and the guide-marks for
the routes of caravans are the bones of camels
and horses. Yet large armies have crossed this
desert waste, aided by the oases which dot the
plain. In the Eussian expeditions of Generals
Skobeleff and Kaufmann to Merv and Khiva, in
the last century, about twenty thousand camels
died. In reality this is debatable land between
the Russians and Chinese. The population in both
provinces does not exceed two millions.

Mongolia, high, cool, and grassy, has much
desert land, but is rich in camels, herds, and
flocks. Out of these highlands, as from a geyser,
in recurrent overflows, have gone forth both to
the East and to the West many streams of human-
ity to influence history and civilization. To this
source we can trace the Huns, Vandals, and other
destructive hordes which assisted in breaking up
the Roman Empire, and the Turks of later days*
Going southward and eastward, as they scattered,
they took on different names.

SHANHAIKWAN ('Mountam-Sea-Gate')
Where the Great Wall u ent down to the aea

WHO AND WHENCE? 31

The Mongols overwhelmed China. In India
they were called Moguls. Moving westward in a
cloud of devastation they camped on Russian soil
for over two centuries. To-day the Mongol com-
ing to Peking, as camel driver, with long trains
of camels, is the object of chaffing by his more
civilized neighbor, the Chinese. The term " Mon-
golian," absurdly applied in late times to the
Chinese, is a relic of the days when the science of
ethnology was in its infancy.

Manchuria, with its area of 363,610 square
miles, much of it fertile, includes the three eastern,
or imperial, provinces. These in recent years have
become famous as the seat of Japan's two wars,
with China and with Russia, and as the scene of
Japan's recent aggression. Its silkworms, that feed
on oak-leaves instead of the mulberry, produce vast
quantities of pongee, which means either "home-
made" or "wild" silk. One third of its area is
nearly as low as the sea-level. Since about 1860
there has been an active immigration thither, so
that the population, greatly increased in recent
years, numbers now probably 25,000,000.

Out of this region came the Manchus, who,
since 1644, have given to China her ruling dynasty
and most of her soldiers. They introduced the
style of dressing the hair which compels the
shaving of the forehead and the wearing of the
queue in token of loyalty. Until very recently,
Manchus never traveled abroad. Indeed, very

32 CHINA'S STORY

few Chinese have ever "been in America except
those coining from the southern region around
Canton. There has never been any sign of a
large immigration from China to the United
States from northern, central, western, or east-
ern China ; bat only from the South, where for
centuries the emigrants have gone out into pe-
ninsular and island Asia*

CHAPTEE IV

THE TARTAKS

WE can understand Chinese history if we think
of the Roman Empire and the northern barba-
rians of Europe. Tartary was the general name
given by Europeans to those countries north of
China proper. Roughly speaking, the story of
China is largely that of civilized Chinese strug-
gling to resist the assaults of the Tatars, or " Tar-
tars." Just as there were at the opening of the
Christian era only two kinds of people in early
Europe, civilized and barbarian, so also in China.

In Europe the Alps made the mountain line
dividing the Romans from the vassal and pupil
nations under their control. There were as yet no
Prench, Germans, Dutch, English, Scotch, Irish,
or Scandinavian populations and languages, but
only wandering savages and rude barbarians, of
whose language and general life, though they were
our ancestors, we know but little. In time the
northern barbarians, moving southward over the
Alps, broke up the Roman Empire, mingled their
blood with that of the southern people, and adopted
more or less of Roman civilization. Through
Christianity and mutual struggle, they passed by
evolution into higher forms of life, in which the

84 CHINA'S STORY

different nations, languages, and governments grew
into their present form. To-day there are in
Europe, Spaniards, French, Germans, Dutch, Eng-
lish, Russians, etc. Two thousand years ago, as
there were north of the Roman Empire only "bar-
barians," so also there were only " Tartars " outside
and north of China.

In eastern Asia, China was the civilized centre,
with aborigines or uncivilized peoples to the east,
south, and west, while in the north was the long
frontier, beyond which were the savages called
collectively Tatars. Their countries were later
named Manchuria, Mongolia, Turkestan, etc. This
term, Tatar, is suggestive of horses or cattle and
" horsy" men, whose business is with herds and
droves, and who live, not on rice and grain, but on
the milk of mares, sheep, and goats. One of their
commandments was ** Never strike a horse."

When the Mongols broke into Europe, the sim-
ilarity of the name Tatar to Tartarus, or Hell,
prompted the monks to write the word Tatar as if
it were spelled Tartar. The French king, St. Louis,
in speaking of these rough riders from the Far
East and their horrible deeds, said, " Well may
they be called Tartars, for their deeds are those
of fiends from Tartarus." They were certainly
kinder to their animals than to men not of their
own race.

As was the case with the various tribes called
collectively Germans, so these many kinds of men

THE TARTARS 35

in northern Asia bore different tribal names in
various eras. Some scholars have divided Chinese
history into two periods : first, development and
evolution, until B. c. 206 ; while all the rest, until

A. D. 1644, is comprised in the *" struggles with the
Tartars." The first great clash lasted from 206

B. C. to A. D. 589, when the empire was divided
between the Tartars in the north and the Chinese
in the south.

The second great struggle lasted from 589 to
1644, during which, after divisions between the
Chinese and the Kin and Mongol Tartars, there
was only one pure Chinese dynasty, called the
Ming, or Bright, which lasted from 1388 to 1644.
Then followed the Manchu Tartars, who assumed
the rule over the empire with the capital at Pe-
king. For the most part the conquerors kept them-
selves separated from the Chinese, not intermarry-
ing with them. While they held the governmental
rule and military power, the purse and the sword,
they let the Chinese have their own way, so that
the conquered won, as they perhaps always will,
in the long run, by passive resistance. The Man-
chus lost their own language and changed most of
their habits. Thus, through luxury and conformity
to native ways, they became to all intents and
purposes Chinese, and are now largely blended
with the nation which they rule.

Nevertheless, there are still great differences in
the physical appearance of the Manchus and the

36 CHINA'S STORY

genuine natives, while many institutions, such as
slavery, peculiar to the Tartars, were never adopted
by the Chinese. In the wearing of the queue, the
people were forced to be like their conquerors ; for
a "pigtail" is a sign of loyalty.

In the ancient world, before Confucius (551
479 B. c.), when China meant only a little king-
dom, not much larger than France or Texas, the
various kinds of men, aborigines, savage and half-
civilized, at the four points of the compass and on
the islands, were vastly more different from one
another than they are to-day. Manners, customs,
food, religions, forms of social order, and govern-
ment differed widely, and before becoming what
they are, have passed through a long evolution.
To-day they show the results of human beings
tinder the play both of natural forces and of human
influences, such as religion, literature, art, the
pressure of invading and conquering nations, and
the events of war and peace. Education and the
social system have made one solvent that dissolves
everything which it touches or which is dropped
into it.

Perhaps no writer has made a better map show-
ing the limits of old China and the gradual exten-
sion of the empire than has Professor E. H. Parker,
though Klaproth's Atlas of twenty-six epochs is
very suggestive. We see old China lying between
parallels thirty-five and forty of north latitude, and
between the Yellow Eiver and the Gulf of Pechili

THE TARTARS 37

By a glance at Professor Parker's map, one may
learn more about the other annexations, incorpo-
rations, and assimilations o territory, the areas
conquered from and re-taken by the Tartars or
nomads, the portions inhabited by mixed races, or
only partially or very lately brought under Chinese
influence, than from reading pages of description.
To this day, in the very heart of the empire,
there are tribes, like the Lolos, only half absorbed.
An area as large as France is still occupied by sev-
eral millions of people belonging to aboriginal
tribes, nearly two hundred in number, called Chi-
nese, but reckoned as "tame " savages, in contrast
to the " wild " or the wholly unsubdued.

The general relations between the Chinese and
their northern f rontagers is best shown in the leg-
ends and anecdotes, just as the stories of our fron-
tiersmen and captives among the Indians illustrate
American colonial life. Many a Tartar lad, taken
prisoner and employed at the Chinese court as
a stable boy, waiter, or slave, rose to favor and
fame. In one case, in 86 B. c., an imperial general
marched into Turkestan and captured the golden
image worshiped by the tribe, possibly a statue
of Buddha, and brought it home as spoil, along
with the chieftain's son Jih Ti. The tall and fine-
looking boy, so faithful to his duties, attracted the
attention of the emperor, who raised him to the
post of Master of the Horse, with the surname of
Kin, or golden, and later made him regent of the

38 CHINA'S STORY

empire. Jih Ti was famous for the magnificence
of bis clothes and houses, and in history his name
enjoys posthumous honors.

This idea of gold as the measure of things super-
fine, and with a sentimental as well as money
value, is as common with the Chinese as with us.
The small feet of the women are " golden lilies."
The lights in the imperial palace are called " The
Golden Lily Candelabra," and one of the highest
honors conferred by the emperor upon a minister
was to order him to be escorted home by light-
bearers. The Gate of the Golden Horses, belong-
ing to the imperial palace, took its name from a
group of statuary, and to this day " to wait at the
Gate of the Golden Horses " means to hold one's
self in readiness for the imperial commands. It is
this constant allusion to good stories, happy omens,
or things that suggest pleasure, that makes a lit-
erary composition or the conversation of Chinese
gentlemen with one another so sparkling. One
of the most famous authors of dramatic literature
of the seventeenth century had Kin in his name.
In a thousand ways the Chinese show their love
of gold, both sentimentally and in rhetoric, in art
and in business, the Buddhists especially making
their images, altars, and temple furnishings a blaze
of golden glory.

It is from the Chinese, also, that the idea of
the transmutation of metals, and especially of the
baser into the nobler, comes. Since the discovery

THE TARTARS 39

of radium in our time, scientific men do not sneer
at this notion quite in the same way as they for-
merly did. The Chinese mystics taught that gold
grows by natural evolution, beginning with the
original substance of all things. It was argued
that gold is the perfected essence of mountain
rock, which, after the lapse of a thousand years,
is changed into quicksilver. But this moon-metal,
mercury, is called into existence by the female
or lunar principle of nature, and remains liquid
until acted upon by the solar or masculine ele-
mental force, when it is converted into gold.
This belief in the transmutation of metals was
especially in vogue during the Tang and Sung
dynasties, when the Arabs were bringing Chinese
ideas, discoveries, and inventions to Europe.
During the Middle Ages the Tartars called their
dynasty Kin, or Golden. The great Mongol host
that invaded Russia was called the Golden Horde.
Many are the novels and poems which picture
the Chinese frontier settlements and garrisons,
the troops and officers pining for home and tired
of their monotonous life, the sudden raids and
cunning stratagems of tne enemy, and the ex-
periences of border fighting. In many civil wars
the Tartars were employed as auxiliaries, just as
the British used the Indians during our Revolu-
tionary War, and as both sides enrolled them in
the War of 1812. Banishment beyond the Great
Wall was frequent, and many are the laments of

40 CHINA'S STORY

the exiles, In poetry. In some cases the long-
banished one went out as a youth and came back
as a white-haired man. Su Wu, who lived B. C.
100, was one of these, who is now extolled in the
popular stories as the pattern of unchanging
fidelity to his imperial lord. Forgotten at court,
he sent a message to the emperor by means of
"wireless telegraphy" on the wings of a bird.
How he did it is thus told :

After many years' absence, having meanwhile
clung to his staff of office as a precious wand, he
married a wife and reared a son. Catching a wild
goose, he wrote a message of loyalty and attached
it to the creature's leg just as it was about to fly
southward in the autumn. The emperor, hunting
in his pleasure grounds, shot the bird, and ob-
serving the missive, opened and read it. He at
once took measures to have Su Wu recalled, and
the venerable man, now husband and father, re-
turned to receive honors.

Other instances are known in which fugitives
from crime or debt, and Chinese renegades, got
among the Tartars, teaching them many new
things or helping them to profit by treachery in
raids against the Chinese. Many also are the
stories of the lovely wives of these exiles, left at
home, but ever faithful to their lords. In the
fourth century A. D. a lady, the wife of a banished
governor, thus bereaved, embroidered her poetical
laments in an intricate circular scrollwork, in 840

THE TARTARS 41

characters, on satin, and sent it as a souvenir to
her absent lord. This dainty piece of needlework
is as celebrated as is the Bayenx tapestry on
which the Norman invasion of England is de-
picted. In China it is the original of many such
works in the same style.

Chinese art, thought, and literature reflect this
long struggle with the Tartars. There are two
reasons why the South is always associated with
what is sunny and pleasant, and is looked upon
as the source of all that is good and desirable,
peace, calm, abundance, fruit, spice, treasure,
commerce, and civilization ; while the North is the
quarter whence come cold, storm, death, disease,
evil influences, war, and the Tartars. Of the two
reasons, one arises from nature and the weather,
the other is the lengthened shadow of history
lying athwart the national memory.

Yet in the age-long clash between Chinese
civilization and Tartar barbarism there were
many mutual gains. The southerners learned many
a lesson, and adopted from their neighbors not
a few articles of food and other material advan-
tages, while the northerners absorbed Chinese
culture for their own good. The contact of the
two peoples for their mutual benefit has been
much like that of our American people with the
Indians, who gave us tobacco, maple sugar, maize,
the snow-shoe, the bark canoe, and many articles
of food. Almost all distinctive American dishes,

42 CHINA'S STORY

besides our best native fruits, grains, and berries,
Lave been developed from Indian or native origi-
nals. So also the debt of the Chinese to the Tar-
tars is very great.

In a word, as some writers contend, the real
history of the Chinese Empire is as much that of
the Tartars as of the Chinese. In the slow evolu-
tion of the ages, and especially during the reign
of the dynasty ruling from 1644 into the twentieth
century, itself Tartar, the two peoples have vir-
tually blended together. Through alien pressure,
and in presence of foreign aggressions, they have
become one.

CHAPTER V

ABOUT THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

TOLD for centuries by wise men, parents, and
nurses around the family fire in winter, under the
trees in summer, or by the lamp in spring or
autumn, every old country has many hero and
wonder tales stored in the national memory.

In each nation the hero must be the kind of
man admired of the people, and very much like
popular living men, but greater in every way. He
must represent the nation's ideal of a great and
good man. He must be crafty, strong, or brave,
like Jacob, Samson, or David ; powerful like
Charlemagne, full of energy like Napoleon, or
noble like Lincoln. If the real man did not actu-
ally have these traits, the romancers clothe him
with them in fiction. Most of the ancient demi-
gods, saints, and heroes would never know them-
selves if they could look into the mirror of modern
fancy. The value of these oft-told stories about
great men is to reflect opinion and show what
ought to be, as well as what is. Story-tellers
usually drop what is displeasing, and keep only
what is lovely or exciting to tell. Mythology is
rich in literary candy and sweets. Children like

44 CHINA'S STORY

these best, and in the childhood of the race the
taste of hearers requires what is suited to the
palate.

Chinese fathers want their sons to be like the
men who lived in the morning of creation. Every
mother in the eighteen provinces hopes that her
daughters will imitate the women of antiquity. All
over the Chinese world, on the 7th of August, is
the feast of the Starry Weaver Maiden, whose
graces and accomplishments every Chinese girl
hopes to have. Their early heroes are wonderfully
like the popular men of modern China. If, there-
fore, the Chinese ideal is linked with toil, then their
first man, or Adam, must be a tremendous worker
with his hands. Incessant labor is the lot of
China's millions. In Chinese fairy tales, the
naughty boy or girl is lazy, the good one is always
notably industrious.

This is so true that in China when any one wants
to show that he is rich and does not have to toil
with his hands, he lets his finger-nails grow long,
sometimes even until they become like Nebuchad-
nezzar's talons. They look first like birds' claws,
and then like switches. Little bamboo splints, or
ivory supports, are used to keep them straight
and prevent breakage, so that these signs of lux-
ury may be trained as upon a trellis. Manicuring
is an old art with the Chinese, but it is more like
vine-dressing than with us. Portraits of persons of
leisure show this. Empresses, who wear a sort of

ABOUT THE BEGINNING OF THINGS 45

long, golden thimble on their finger tips, are thus
represented.

When the Chinese think of creation, they tell
us about the first being, who was named Pan Ku.
He was placed on the earth, when sky and ground
were all one, to reduce chaos to order and to pound,
chisel, and carve the earth until it got into proper
shape. The mighty giant had a chisel in one hand
and a mallet in the other. For eighteen thousand
years he began work every morning early and kept
up his task until dark. As he toiled, he increased
in stature, so that gradually he was able to push
up the heavens and expand the earth, making it
more solid and shapely. He held the sun and moon
in his hands. At last, in a rough way indeed, the
world was fit for human beings to live upon.

Then Pan Ku died, but in his death he did al-
most as much to make the world habitable as dur-
ing his life, for the products of the decay of his
body gave the earth its furniture. His head be-
came mountains ; his breath, winds and clouds ;
his voice, thunder ; his left eye the sun, and his
right eye the moon. His limbs were changed into
the four quarters of the globe, and his five ex-
tremities into the five great mountains famous in
Chinese history. His sinews became the undula-
tions of the earth's surface, his blood the rivers,
his muscles and veins the strata of the earth, his
flesh the soil, his hair and beard the stars and con-
stellations, his skin and the hairs on it plants and

46 CHINA'S STORY

trees, his teeth and bones metals, and his marrow
pearls and precious stones. The sweat of his body
turned into rain, and then, as the last particles of
his mortal frame were blown upon by the wind,
the parasites, or, as we should call them, microbes,
turned into human beings.

The Chinese and the Scandinavian theories of
creation are much alike.

There were many giants on the earth in those
days. There always are in ancient stories. Some
of the big fellows, being unruly, had to be kept
in order. So three rulers in succession, called the
heavenly, the earthly, and the human sovereigns,
each of them living eighteen thousand years, ruled
the world. Gradually the inhabitants learned to
do many things, becoming thus less brutish and
more human. They had homes and families. Chil-
dren knew their fathers. As yet, however, they
lived in caves, in holes in the ground, or among the
branches of the trees, and ate their food raw. The
earth was full of horrible beasts and reptiles, and
the trees and vegetation were rougher than at
present and furnished little food for man. Grad-
ually better breeds of animals came into being,
and some of these were tamed for human service.
Certainly no race has excelled the Chinese in tam-
ing animals, beasts, birds, reptiles, and fish for the
service of man.

After Pan Ku and the three early sovereigns,
there followed a ruler who instructed men in the

ABOUT THE BEGINNING OF THINGS 47

building of " wooden nests " or houses. Then the
Fire Maker showed men how to rub one stick
against another until smoke and flame caine forth.
He also taught them to count and record days,
months, and years by tying knots with strings.
From this time on, men cooked their food, softened
many hard things by fire, hot water, and steam, and
kept warm in cold weather.

One must not ask, nor try to answer, too many
questions about these old stories. Myths are mir-
rors of belief. They are very useful in showing
what the Chinese believed about their ancestors.
These, they thought, rose from very humble be-
ginnings and passed through periods of lowest
savagery, which is a kind of life not very far
lifted up, either in habits or in states of mind,
from that of the brutes. Then they merged into a
condition one stage higher, barbarism, in which
there were arts and crafts, by which men avail
themselves of the forces and resources of nature
and gain health, comforts, and time for thought.
The first is an age of long processes, the other of
distinct events.

This unknown period of early beginnings men
fill up with mythology and fairy tales, because
they cannot now tell exactly what took place, any
more than a child can remember what happened
in its infancy. There are no records, for there
was then no writing, but only rude picture signs,
such as Indians and Esquimaux use. In the next

48 CHINA'S STORY

age certain great happenings stand out by them-
selves, such as a flood, a famine, an earthquake or
pestilence which destroys many lives. The happy
events, such as the introduction of a new article
of food or drink, the discovery of metals, a sure
remedy for diseases, or an invention that saves
toil or gives beauty, are long remembered.

In this period also there are great civilizers,
who teach marriage and politeness, medicine and
agriculture, the catching of fish, and the rearing
of domestic animals. They show how hemp may
be woven into cloths, or how silkworms may be
made to yield shining fibres for beautiful dresses.
Some make musical instruments and draw sweet
sounds therefrom, or tbey invent writing, and
thus store up and hand down, even after death,
ideas, information, and records of events. With
what the steel point scratches on bamboo, or the
brush pen puts with ink on paper, men may be
moved by history, eloquence, or poetry. Then the
drama and the theatre come into existence.

In time, these great men who were inventors
are supposed to have been "gods." Gratitude
turns to adoration, prayer, and honors paid to
their memory. Craftsmen, guilds and companies,
cities and provinces, adopt them as their patron
gods or saints. The painters attempt to represent
their faces. Legend, poetry, the drama, pro-
verbs, and art make their names and their sup-
posed features, as shown in their portraits, so fa-

ABOUT THE BEGINNING OF THINGS 49

miliar that they become very real to the people.
Where we foreigners, visiting a temple in Canton,
or seeing a collection of dolls, images, idols, or
pictures in Ningpo, behold only strangeness and
oddity, the natives of China recognize benefactors
and familiar friends, whose names are to them
as household words. As the thirteen stripes and
cluster of stars suggest the independent thirteen
colonies which became the United States, or as
an axe and rails recall Abraham Lincoln, so to
the Chinese mind the cock standing on the drum
means peace, the sacred unicorn prosperity, and
a score of other symbols bring to memory famous
events in the long and glorious history of China,
the oldest of states.

The legendary age extends from 2852 B. c. to
the historical period, which begins about 800
B. C., after which we have clearly written accounts
of men who did things at a fixed date, and who
lived very much nearer in time to the men who
wrote about them. The Chinese have no history
before 800 B. c., and the Japanese none before
400 A. D. Yet, like Europeans of all sorts, they
claim vast age, which has only lately manufac-
tured tradition to support it.

All the languages of mankind may be divided
into a few families. The Aryan has inflections,
gender, number, person, and case, and the root is
changeable in form. The Semitic has tri-literal
roots. The Turanian is agglutinative, extra pieces

50 CJbUJNA'S STUiCX

or parts of speech being glued on to the unchange-
able root. Now, Chinese is perhaps the oldest
written, living language in the world, but the
very fact that it began to be written so early pre-
vented its growth. Infants learn to talk in single
syllables. Chinese is the baby talk of the ancient
world, too early fixed in form by written charac-
ters, and has little or no grammar. It is monosyl-
labic. The poverty of sounds is made into richness
by a system of tones, so that one syllable may
have many meanings, according as it is intoned.

That is the main reason why it is so hard for
us to hold Chinese names in our mind. There are
no long words, and even proper names are made
of monosyllables. If we do not know the language
by eye or ear, it is only by making Chinese
words and names look and sound like our own
that we can easily remember them, as we see in
the case of names of places and Latin forms like
Confucius, Mongolia, Manchuria, etc.

Hence, also, the very short names of the early
founders of Chinese order. To read of them and
what they did is like perusing the early chapters
of Genesis. Thus Tsi, now worshiped as the god
of agriculture, was Director of Husbandry. Shen
Nung, the Divine Husbandman, first fashioned
timber into ploughs and taught men farming.
He discovered the curative virtues of plants and
began the practice of holding markets. He devel-
oped the scheme of the eight diagrams, on which

ABOUT THE BEGINNING OF THINGS 51

philosophy is based, into sixty-four. Hi Chung,
director of chariots under Yu the Great, taught
men to apply horses in draught, and ploughs and
wheeled vehicles in place of human labor. An^
other introduced the grapevine and showed men
how to make wine. Ling Lun began the art of
music. In medical science, one physician dissected
the human body, learned about its internal parts
and the blood channels, and set forth a theory of
the pulses. One of his successors, long afterward,
was very skilful in acupuncture, or needle sur-
gery, and by this means relieved an emperor of
cerebral disease. Li Show was the inventor of
the art of notation, and drew up the nine sections
of mathematics. In order to measure the earth,
that is, the known dominions, Tai Chang paced
the earth from its eastern to its western border,
while Shu Hai performed the same task from
north to south, by which means its length and
breadth were ascertained. To these early people
" the earth " meant China.

Indeed, most Chinese precedents are drawn
from this age, which we may call that of the
Yellow Emperor, Whang Ti (B. c. 2697), who
was surrounded by eminent men of light and
leading, whose names are famous. Of course, the
Chinese, though now a very peaceful people,
must have a god of war. All old nations did.
Yeo was a great rebel, who was beaten by the
Yellow Emperor. He headed a confederacy of

52 CHINA'S STORY

eighty-one brothers who talked like men, but who
had the bodies of beasts and fed on dust. They
made war weapons and oppressed the people until
Whang Ti marched to chastise them. On the
day of battle, Yeo called on the wind god and
rain lord to aid him, but when a mighty tempest
rose, the Yellow Emperor sent his ally, the
Daughter of Heaven, to quell the storm. Then he
slew the rebel, whose spirit went up and occupied
the planet Mars, which still influences the issues
of battle. Verily this was a war of Titans. Yeo
was the first to produce disorder, but is reputed
to be the inventor of weapons and of astrology.

Two great men, Yao and Shun, are to the Chi-
nese very much what Abraham and Moses are to
the Semitic peoples. Chinese gentlemen will say,
and believe what they are telling you, that there
is hardly anything in the China of to-day that was
not in the minds or plans of Yao and Shun. The
reign of one began B. c. 2356, and of the other,
his associate, B. C. 2285. As with most national
worthies, we have wonderful stories as to what
their fond mothers thought of them, even before
they were born. The mother of Yu the Great
gave him birth after seeing a falling star and
swallowing a divine pearl. The three, considered
as peerless in wisdom and virtue, have been im-
mortalized by Confucius and Mencius, and glori-
fied beyond measure by later writers.

Theirs was the golden age which it is the object

ABOUT THE BEGINNING OF THINGS 53

of the good men of to-day to bring back to the
earth. Yao began great works, but selected Shun,
because of his filial piety, to complete them* In
Yao's time a great flood covered the country, the
water rising even to the tops of the mountains.
This overflow, which destroyed fields and houses,
was probably a change in the channel of the Yel-
low River. After nine years of incredible toil, dur-
ing which he took heed neither to food nor cloth-
ing, and thrice passed by the door of his home
without stopping, even when he heard the wailing
of his infant son within, Yu brought the waters
under control. Then he divided the empire into
nine provinces. Agriculture was taught and a cal-
endar was begun, by having men watch the motions
of the stars and planets. To accept the Chinese
calendar has ever been a mark of loyal vassalage
to the Chinese emperor. Shun also improved the
ritual of religion and ordained a code of punish-
ments.

It is the peculiarity of nearly all ancient writing
and religion, and the mark usually of age, both in
individuals and in nations, to assert vehemently that
the past was better than the present, and things
are not as they used to be, either in ancient times
or when " we were children." With every succeed-
ing age glorifying the former one, and the story-
teller always embellishing what went before, there
is piled up a vast mass of unconscious exaggera-
tion. The past " wins a glory by its being far." In

54: CHINA'S STOKY

those distant days in China, nobody stole any-
thing, or locked his doors at night, and things
dropped on the road were never picked up by any
but the owner. In a word, as among savages, pri-
vate ownership, or property, was unknown. Every-
thing was held in common. Morals were of the
community, not of the individual.

The virtues and prosperous government of the
two celebrated sovereigns, Yao and Shun, are com-
memorated in a phrase of four characters, the syno-
nym for prosperity, and reading literally " Yao
Heaven, Shun sun " ; or, in full, " Heaven favor-
ing, as in the days of Yao ; and the sun resplend-
ent, or the day prosperous, as in the time of
Shun." Another phrase is "Pearls strung together
and the tally of gems united," meaning bril-
liancy and concord. When Yao had completed the
seventieth year of his reign at the winter solstice,
the five planets were in conjunction and the sun
and moon stood opposite to each other.

Learned men's essays and Chinese literature in
general, but especially of the elegant sort, are
full of such terse phrases, which make sentences
sparkle and delight cultured readers. No lan-
guage is as luxurious as the Chinese in allusions
to ancient stories, anecdotes of famous people, or
places and things delightful. It is no wonder the
Chinese love their favorite authors, whose texts are
a mosaic rich in pleasing images.

Chinese notions of eclipses were those of prim-

ABOUT THE BEGINNING OF THIXGS 55

itive man everywhere. It was especially cliarged
upon the two earliest astronomers that they should
give warning of a solar eclipse. According to the
tradition, these men neglected their duty and be-
came riotous and drunken. An eclipse having
come on without notice, the pair were put to death.

The great mass of ignorant people in China are
still terrified when they see during the daytime
untimely darkness, and the birds going to roost in
the premature twilight. Believing that a great
dragon in the sky is swallowing the luminary, they
beat gongs, drums, and tom-toms, blow horns and
whistles, and by every kind of hideous noise try
to frighten the monster away or make him dis-
gorge his prey. When full light comes again, they
imagine they have succeeded. Similar ideas pre-
vailed in ancient Europe.

The dragon is also the symbol of what is most
precious. It is believed that pearls endowed with
peculiar virtues of magic and blessing are carried
by dragons upon their foreheads. We see them
playing with one another and the jewels, or, su-
premely strenuous, they contend in dire conflict
for the possession of the prizes. One of the most
common representations on works of art is that of
two dragons, that are struggling for, or, it may be,
guarding a precious gem. This is a picture, in
symbol, of the terrific struggle of the forces of the
universe, as manifested in storm, cyclone, typhoon,
earthquake, tidal wave, volcanic eruption, or the

56 CHDTA'S STOEY

phenomena of the skies, ocean, and land. On the
old Chinese flag the dragon was the emblem of au-
thority. Although the Chinese did not know the
theory of the tides, and the effect which the moon
has npon the sea and its waters, yet they associ-
ated the moon, or the precious pearl among the
moving clouds in the sky, with the pulses of the
ocean. A common representation in hronze and
crystal is that of dragons seizing, contending for,
or controlling the crystal ball or pearl, which re-
presents the moon. Hence the dragon is used as a
symbol of commerce and fortunate voyages, or the
hope of such, and on paper money.

"We meet the dragon very often in fairyland.
The shrine of the king of the world beneath the
sea is under his guardianship. He guides the daring
voyager into strange seas and to the treasure castle
on far-off islands. He loves music, and can be di-
verted by the sound of the lute. He delivers the
hero out of his dangers, and brings the princess
safely to joy and peace. In their dreams, Chinese
children, and especially ambitious students, ride
on the backs of dragons and go soaring through
the air and over mountains and sea, or they travel
on these coursers into strange lands, or go down
beneath the ocean's bed. In serious thought the
dragon is the symbol of that with which the im-
pious may not fool or trifle, and whose powers none
may mock or defy.

One would need a library to tell of all the stories

ABOUT THE BEGINNING OF THINGS 57

of dragons in the lore and art of Japan, Korea,
and other nations under Chinese culture. In geo-
graphy an amazing number of features of the
landscape take their name from some part of the
dragon's body, head, tail, eye, or mouth. The suc-
cessful students at examinations are called dragons.
The emblem of their success is either the dragon
or the tiger. The Son of Heaven, the emperor, and
his high ministers, and all the imperial attributes
are associated with this divinely constituted crea-
ture, and the seat of power is called the Dragon's
Seat. Hence, around the imperial throne of China
the dragon is carved in the richest wood and
rarest stones. The emperor's face is the Dragon
Countenance, and his carriage the Dragon's
Chariot.

CHAPTER VI

THE EVOLUTION OF GOVEBN3EENT

CHINESE society rests for Its longevity upon
the principle contained in the fifth commandment
in the decalogue of Moses. In China, the church-
nation, filial piety lies at the foundation of all
order, and its typical saints are those who most
highly honor their parents. It is related of Shun
(B, c. 2317-2208), that, though cruelly treated by
his father, who had taken a new wife and favored
her offspring, he in nowise lessened his dutiful
conduct toward his parents or his regard for his
step-brother. The good boy was rewarded even
by the beasts, so that they came to help him drag
his plough, while the birds weeded the fields for
him. He also made pottery and caught fish for
his step-parent and brother, though they still per-
secuted him. They even set fire to his house, and
then, getting him to go into a deep well, tried to
put him out of the way, but in every case his life
was miraculously preserved.

In Chinese literature there are twenty -four
stories of twenty - three sons and one daughter
who illustrated filial piety in their unswerving
obedience, and in the unselfish sacrifices they
made for their parents. It rather amuses the

THE EVOLUTION OF GOVERNMENT 59

Occidental to find so many boys and only one girl
thus canonized. We recognize these characters in
the storybooks, in pictures on plates, cups, and
vases, and in many forms of art in China and
Japan. Putnam and the wolf, George Washington
and his cherry tree, Betsy Ross and her flag, are
not better known to us than are these paragons
to the Chinese.

We must not forget that classic China, where
these worthies lived, with fewer than a million
people in it, comprised only parts of three north-
ern provinces. The neighboring aborigines had
not been wholly subdued, though peaceful mea-
sures were gradually winning them over. So long
as they remained quiet, they were allowed to live
on the soil, gradually becoming Chinese.

All land in theory belonged to the ruler, who
gave certificates of ownership, part of the produce
being paid to him for the support of order. Where
the ruler lived was the capital. This was in the
centre of five squares, of different sizes, inclosed
one within another. The central one was called
the Royal Domain. The Noble's Tenure, or next
square, consisted of lands allotted to the great
officers. The Region of Tranquil Tenure, the
Territory of Aliens, and the Wild Domain fol-
lowed in their order. In these five squares lived
the nine different grades of people, from the ruler
and his household to the savages in the distant
regions where civilization was unknown. Those

60 CHINA'S STORY

living in the square nearest the capital paid the
highest taxes, and those at the greatest distance
the lightest.

Gradually government changed from the simple
patriarchal form, in which the head of a tribe
ruled his people, as if all were in one family, into
a monarchy, where there was a king, with grades
of society, the nobles, the higher order of citi-
zens, the lower orders, the half subdued, and the
utterly wild, each class paying taxes according
to ability. Thus by slow evolution the form of
government approached that of to-day. In reality
China has passed through many varieties of gov-
ernment, but the nation is one family and the
emperor is the father of his people.

All religions are less complicated and more
simple as we ascend the stream of time. There
were no idols or temples, or any caste of priests,
in early China. Worship was offered to the Su-
preme Ruler, to the Six Objects of Honor, to
hills and rivers, and to the hosts of spirits. Many
scholars translate the term Shang-ti by our word
God. A sentence from Confucius, in ten charac-
ters, in his Doctrine of the Mean, or Middle
Way, is thus put into English : " In the cere-
monies at the altars of Heaven and Earth they
served God." In spirit and form, ancient Chinese
religion was but slightly different from that of
the ancient Semites. The Temple of Heaven in
Peking, mostly of white marble, in three stories,

THE EVOLUTION OF GOVERNMENT 61

is roofed with blue tiles, as if to represent the
azure of the sky. Dr. Legge put off his shoes in
visiting this sacred place. In 1900, the British
cavalry made a stable of it !

Ancient worship was graded. When we first
know anything of Chinese ancestral worship, we
find this to be the form of their religion. Only
the emperor offered sacrifice to the spirits of his
imperial progenitors, the province governors to
the spirits of Earth and Heaven, and the common
people to their ancestors.

In all ancient cults, however, what a man neg-
lected to do was even more significant than what
he performed. It was believed that the spirits of
the forefathers had great powers of evil, as well
as of good. Therefore to neglect honoring the an*
cestors might mean frightful disasters from water,
fire, or pestilence.

When scholars tell us about the ancient re-
ligion of China, as described in or learned from
the books, we must remember that this lofty faith
was practiced in its purity only by the most intel-
ligent and devout. The great mass, the ignorant,
the vulgar, the stupid, the brutal and wicked held
to debasing habits and notions. Beast-worship,
belief in fox and wolf possession, witchcraft and
resort to magic, and a degrading fear of evil
spirits, were and are general. In China, as in
other countries, there is a great gulf between the
theory and the practice of religion.

62 CHINA'S STORY

In China, whether pre-ancient or of to-day, the
unit of society is not the individual, but the
family. The happiness or unhappiness of the in-
dividual is nothing in itself, that of the family is
everything. Equality and fraternity are written
on the Chinese heart, and the idea of education is
to inspire family affection. There is no other
country in the world where the family idea is so
prominent or its unity so safeguarded.

Oriental civilization is communal, not indi-
vidual. Even the language mirrors the state of so-
ciety. There are no true personal pronouns, few
ways or none of expressing individuality, no
personification in poetry, while the whole speech
is impersonal to the last degree. Many words
common to us cannot be translated directly into
these languages, nor theirs into ours, for there are
no exact equivalents. It is like making change as
between American quarters and English shillings,
or American dollars and French five-franc pieces.
One can come only near to a fair exchange.

With us the husband and wife begin the home,
living, as a rule, apart from their parents. In
China the married children occupy the same house
with the son's parents. If a man is adopted into
another family, with no father or son in it, he
must, in order to become its head, take his wife's
family name. Of old the members of the same
family lived in one hamlet, and when the families
increased they became a clan, which was supposed

THE EVOLUTION OF GOVERNMENT 63

to have had but one ancestor. Even to-day in re-
mote villages, all the people form one household.
One great house, built in the form of a circle, or
hollow ring, with the garden in the centre and cul-
tivated fields outside, may hold three or four gen-
erations in many families who make up one clan,
living under one round roof for better protection
against robbers.

This prehistoric division of the people into
clans is reflected in the very small number of
Chinese family names. Ours, like Smith, Jones,
etc., are large in number, compared to the Li,
Sun, Fan, etc., of the "Hundred Families" of
China. In all matters that are purely local, the
head of the family or clan has control. There is
no country in the world more famous for its local
freedom, and no larger democracy than China.
Yet there seems lacking a powerful middle class
between the central national government and the
common people. Localcustoms are so tenacious as to
have the force of law, and with these customs
or binding traditions of a place, very few magis-
trates, whether emperors, province rulers, mayors,
or village elders, dare interfere.

In very, very early days, human sacrifices were
as common in eastern Asia as in Europe. When
the master died, some, often many, of his faith-
ful servants, yes, even his wives, died with him.
Traces of this custom are found within quite
modern times. Among the beneficent reforms

64 CHINA'S STORT

was the substitution of clay figures, and, in pro-
cess of time, of paper effigies. Memorial tablets
are said to have originated B. c. 350 in honor of a
courtier who had given his own flesh to save the
life of an emperor. Ancestor-worship involved
the propitiation of the evil as well as the good
spirits. This is the immediate purpose in mind
when fire-crackers are set off by the Chinese in
their burying-grounds and at funerals ; that is, to
scare off the spirits that would work harm. In
constant fear of the over-populated world of the
unseen, the Chinaman, like the Japanese, is apt
to laugh or appear gay, when announcing bad
news or telling of trouble, especially of the death
of near friends. It is a relic of the old dread of
evil spirits and the desire of not letting them
know, lest they might seize upon the departed. A
large part of the ritual of burial is intended to
fool or drive away the goblins, and at the grave
these are kept off by fireworks. This is the real
and the unconsciously inherited philosophy of
"the Japanese smile." The Chinese grin while
bearing pain, or announce sad news with apparent
merriment.

One of several stories illustrating the ancient
custom of men u dying with the master," or of
virgins being offered to appease gods and mon-
sters, is that of "giving a wife in marriage to
the river-god." It also shows how a brave man
abolished a bad custom. A reforming governor,

THE EVOLUTION OF GOYERNMEST 65

B. c. 424, found that the ruling elders of a certain
city, in league with the sorcerers and a chief priest-
ess, levied money on the people and then selected a
pretty maiden, who was richly dressed and thrown
into the Yellow Eiver to meet the embraces of
the god. The next year the governor seized the
chief sorceress and some of her associates and
tumbled them into the water in place of the cus-
tomary virgin. After that the river lord, or god
of the Yellow Eiver, had to do without his regular
allowance.

In a pack of fire-crackers, one can see reflected
the order of ancient society. There is, first of all,
the one yellow, or imperial cracker. That stands
for the emperor. Various green-tinted crackers
represent the nobles and magistrates of various
ranks, whom we call " mandarins." The great
number alike and of the same color, red, tell of
the populace or common people, who are " made
of the red earth and to the red earth return."
What we long employed to celebrate the birth of
a new nation, July 4, 1776, the Chinese used ages
ago in connection with funerals. The one way is
about as civilized as the other.

When Yu succeeded to power, B. c. 2205, there
began the Hia or first regular Chinese dynasty,
which lasted to B. c. 1818. It was so named after
the territory now in the province of Honan, which
was given to Yu the Great, for his services in
controlling the Yellow Kiver. After this herculean

6 CHINA'S STORY

task, he gave the country a good government. In
order to be close to the people, he had a drum,
a gong, a sounding-stone, a wooden bell, and a
rattle hung outside the palace walls. These, in
their order, were to be sounded according as one
came to instruct the king, had a suggestion to
offer, came to tell of famine or rebellion, appealed
from an unjust decision, or asked for justice.
During Yu's reign, more aboriginal tribes were
conquered and the realm was extended. As gold
and silver were now mined, stamped money took
the place of the old-fashioned barter.

The legends of the era show the influence of
both good and wicked women as well as men.
They make it plain, also, that as wealth increased,
luxury and cruelty became more general. The
state of affairs became so bad that one Prince
Tang, a very virtuous man, was, in B. c. 1766, pro-
voked into rebellion, the first of the many suc-
cessful "rebels " known in Chinese history.

On the occasion of a great drought, it was sup-
posed that the wrath of Heaven required a human
victim. In this crisis, the emperor, Tang, after
fastening and cutting off his hair, put on white
robes, and in a chariot drawn by white horses
came to the mulberry grove where sacrifices were
offered. Confessing his sins, Tang prayed to
Heaven to take his life for the sins of the people.
Happily at this moment clouds gathered, rain
fell, and his life was spared. The Shang or Yin

THE EVOLUTION OF GOVEBNMENT 67

dynasty, which he founded, endured for over six
hundred years, from B. c. 1766 to B. c. 1122. Most
of the twenty-six rulers were of little personal
importance.

During this period, in addition to the wild
tribes on the borders, we note the beginning of
the long struggle between the Chinese and the
northern Tartars, which at last, after thirty
centuries, ended by the Manchus subduing the
Chinese in war, and ruling in Peking. On the
other hand, the Chinese overcame their conquerors
in time of peace, civilization winning greater vic-
tories than those of bloodshed.

Most interesting during this epoch is the divi-
sion of the arable land into units of nine equal
squares. Each family cultivated its own block,
while the ninth, or central square, was worked
in common by all and its produce paid to the
government as a tax. Gradually it came to pass
that the emperor, who ruled by divine right as
the father of his people, was looked upon as the
favorite of the Supreme Ruler and was called the
Son of Heaven, as we have seen.

Probably the most famous man of this period
was the scholar Ki Tsze, an ancestor of Confucius,
whom the Koreans call the founder of their civil-
ization. He was the author of part of the classics.
Vainly protesting against the wickedness of his
sovereign, he was thrown into prison, but, released
in 1122, he went to Liao Tung, or the Far East.

68 CHINA'S STORY

His alleged tomb at Ping Yang was greatly in-
jured during the war of 1894, but was soon re-
paired. Around a sacrificial stone table and drum
are the effigies of Horses and sheep, as at the
tombs of great men in China. Because Ki Tsze
lived before Confucius, the Koreans boast an an-
tiquity greater than China's and a ** civilization
four thousand years old." Yet they have no real
history covering half this period.

"With the defeat of Chou Hsin, in 1122, the
Divine Prince, TVu Wang, founded the famous
Chow dynasty, lasting from B. c. 1122 to B. c. 255,
ushering in also the feudal system, so brilliantly
described in the poetry gathered by Confucius, at
which we shall now glance.

CHAPTER VH

THE FEUDAL SYSTEM

the era from 1122 to 255 B. M society
in China was organized under the forms of the
feudal system. Feudalism, through which almost
every civilized nation has passed, is in substance
much the same all over the world, whatever be the
time or the people. Hundreds of volumes have
been written on this subject, telling us what feu-
dalism is and how it originated, but not from very
many writers do we get real light. Some seem
rather to increase the darkness.

The feudalism of Japan, under which I had the
rare experience of living, in 1871, during the last
year of its career, was seven centuries old, and was
very much like that of other countries and ages.
Indeed one reason, and the chief one, for the dif-
ference in the reputations of Chinese and Japanese
merchants lies in the fact that in China, since
feudalism passed away, trade has been honorable
for more than two thousand years. In Japan
feudalism was not abolished until 1872, and until
that time the merchant had no social standing.

In feudalism there is no place of honor for the
trader, but only for the landowner and the soldier.
There may be many definitions of feud*Jism, but

70 CHINA'S STOKY

practically in this state of society there are only
two classes of people, those who own land and
are u somebody," and those who are landless and
are u nobody." The whole basis of feudalism is
ownership of land. All the territory, instead of
being owned by those who have bought or who till
it, belongs to men of varying rank, to whom it
has been given as a reward for personal service.

In such a state of society there are lords and
nobles, and in some countries the clergy also, as
privileged classes. Yet instead of many classes of
the people, or hundreds of ways of earning a liv-
ing, making many social distinctions, as in mod-
ern life, there are but two divisions of society,
taxpayers and non-taxpayers. The peasantry may
consist of the free and the unfree, that is, of serfs
and farmers who have certain privileges on the soil.
"The people " do not exist politically. They have
few or no rights, for the lord of the land owns
everything, the fish in the water, the birds in
the air, the beasts in the forest, and the treasures
in the ground. All privileges come from the land-
lord, who permits or forbids, exercising authority
in even the smallest affairs. Yet there are many
picturesque phases of human life and generally a
great diversity of color, costume, and customs.

In the feudal system, almost all relations and
usages being based on ownership of land, the chief
characteristics of social and political life are the
relationships of lords and vassals. In such a state

THE FEUDAL SYSTEM 71

of society, public law becomes merged into private
law, so that office, jurisdiction, and even kingship
are forms of property. The tenures of land are in
the form of feuds, that is, fees, or fiefs. The re-
tainer is bound to serve his lord at court or as a
soldier. The personal note of the system is loyalty.
For the sake of his lord, the knight or soldier
must count his life, his parents, wife, children, or
property as naught, in comparison to the claims of
his master upon him. Thus the great laws of con-
tract and of mutual dependence and service are
taught, and probably as these can be taught in no
other system of society. In China, filial piety is
the basis of civilization and the note of ethics and
history. In Japan it is loyalty.

When Wu Wang, who founded the Chow-
dynasty (1122-255 B. c.), became emperor, he
parceled out his domain, rewarding those who
had helped him during his campaigns. Besides
giving them grants of land he added titles of honor,
such as duke, marquis, earl, count, etc. These high
officers were the emperor's vassals and were bound
to serve him as courtiers or soldiers. In this way
China was divided up like a chessboard, though
the areas were of various shapes and sizes, for the
real value of territory is not in its measurement,
but in its fertility, and is reckoned according to
the average results of the harvest.

Now there are two ways of picturing to the
mind this remarkable era and the people who lived

72 CHINA'S STORY

under it. One is to write the outward story o
events, give a catalogue of the petty states,
scores in number, each with a monosyllabic name,
which few of us can remember, and then men-
tion the rulers in succession, or tell of the feudal
wars ; in other words, to show the bones of history.

As to war, one might almost say that campaigns
seemed continuous and interminable. Many rulers,
ambitious of power and coveting more land, ex-
tended their boundaries unjustly. Armies went
out regularly when the millet flowers bloomed in
the spring, and returned when the snow lay on the
mire. As each state was governed by its own
ruler, there was constant rivalry between these
vassal kingdoms. In time, some of them became
so powerful that their rulers took the title of
kings. One of them, the state of Tsin, or Chin,
became paramount, B. c. 255, overthrew the im-
perial dynasty, and usurped the throne. It is
believed that from this state the name China
became known throughout Asia. Dr. Legge de-
clares that " the state of Tsin fought its way to
empire through seas of blood. Probably there is
no country in the world which has drunk in so
much blood from its battles, sieges, and massacres
as this."

There is another way of picturing China's feudal
age. It is to tell how people felt, played, hunted,
met together socially, and enjoyed themselves ; or,
how the nobles and their men of war with their

THE FEUDAL SYSTEM 73

splendid chariots, caparisoned horses, silken ban-
ners, shining armor, fine clothes, jewels, and equip-
ment made grand display at the durbars, or state
levees, when the prince gave audience to his vas-
sals. It is pleasant, also, to learn how the women
and young folks lived, dressed, and amused them-
selves, how children were reared and educated,
what was the round of daily life, what grew in
the fields, and what kind of food was eaten. We
would know something about agriculture and in-
dustry, what flowers were cultivated, and what
animals were hunted or reared for protection and
defense, or employed for burdens or draught. One
would like to be told of the ornaments and jewels
worn, of the perfumes that were considered plea-
sant, of the musical instruments played, and, in
general, about what human beings cared most to do.
Has any one reported these things ? In the days
before newspapers, who wrote on such subjects ?

Happily for us we have true pictures made by
men and women who lived during the feudal era.
These word-paintings are found in the form of
poetry, written from B. c. 1765 to B. c. 585, in the
She King, or Book of Odes, which Confucius
edited, and Dr. James B. Legge has translated.
According to the tradition, "the old poems
amounted to more than three thousand. Confu-
cius removed those which were only repetitions of
others, and selected those which would be service-
able for the inculcation of propriety and righteous-

7i CHINA'S STORY

ness." Confucius published in all three hundred
and five pieces, which he sung over to his lute to
bring them into accordance with the musical style
then prevalent.

Mauy of these verse-pictures are of lovers and
weddings, and of the joyous festivals celebrated
when the maid became bride and wife. Lovers
seem to have been like those of to-day, as much
in a hurry as now, eager to get their wives, then,
after marriage, taking things as a matter of course*
See the swift-driving lover in this poem :

" With axle creaking all on fire I went,
To fetch my young and lovely bride.
No thirst or hunger pangs my bosom rent,
I only longed to have her by my side.
I feast with her, whose virtue fame had told,
Nor need we friends our rapture to behold."

The poem in five stanzas then describes the birds
and living creatures met by the rider on his way
to his " virtuous bride of noble mind and person-
ality," and how he ascended the hills and ridges.
"Whether on level roads or slopes, he drew from
the things seen, were they oak trees or trailing-
tailed pheasants, images of the beauty and grace
of the maid who was to make his home.

In another case, when, " like the dove in the
magpie's nest," the bride goes to her future home,
a hundred chariots are ready to meet her and take
her there. Again a wife, with industry and rever-
ence, assists her husband in sacrificing at the

THE FEUDAL SYSTEM 75

temple. In other verses, the wife of a great officer
bewails his absence on duty and longs for the joy
of his return. Many are the picture-songs cele-
brating the diligence and virtue of good wives, or
the charms of royal princesses. One poem shows
the anxiety of a young lady to get married. She
notices that the plums when ripe fall from the
bough, at first only seven tenths, then three
tenths are left, and finally she gives notice that
they who would " wish her love to gain " will not
now apply in vain. When no more plums are on
the bough, and all are in the basket, any ardent
seeker "need only speak the word."

The position of woman was not very high in
these early ages. It never has been in China, where
subordination is the great principle. The introduc-
tion of Confucianism into Korea and Japan re-
sulted in a distinct lowering of the status of women.
Even the loved bride might be called a dove, but
it would be with the idea of her stupidity, not
loveliness. A score of odes celebrate the lack of
jealousy in the true wife toward the other women
in the harem, one of them being devoted to the cure
of jealousy and " the restoration of good feeling in
the harem." The Chinese can never be proud of
their treatment of one half of the race, despite all
their boasted ethics. Nevertheless, China has had
many great women who are justly famous.

One of the difficult tasks in translating poetry
or prose from one language into another is that

76 CHINA'S STORY

of retaining the pleasing associations o the origi-
nal '-One man's meat is another man's poi-
son," and ** concerning tastes there should be no
dispute/' Different peoples hare very varying
ideas as to a goose, a dove, or the tree from which
jujube paste is made. Xot only plants, but animals,
have a different language to various nations. The
same flower in one country suggests a funeral and
in another a wedding. To one mind there rises at
a certain word the idea of grace and beauty, to
another that of stupidity and folly. In one country
the cherry blossom is the queen of flowers, in an-
other the rose. In our land the rose-bud is the
emblem of blooming young womanhood, but in Ja-
pan the Valerian blossom. Many common flowers
in the gardens of China, as familiar as are golden-
rod or pond-lilies to us, are known in America only
by their long and uncouth Latin names. It is very
evident that we cannot do justice to these ancient
poems of China by mere translation. The task
awaits some poet who is also a scholar in Chinese.
Very remarkable is the fact that many of these
odes, written thousands of years ago, contain the
same ideas expressed in almost the same metre
with which our poets have made us familiar. For
example, there is one nearly identical with our
" Woodman, Spare that Tree " :

" Oh fell not that sweet pear-tree !
See how Its branches spread
Spoil not its shade," etc.

THE FEUDAL SYSTEM 77

And the reason is that the people love the tree
because their good ruler, the duke, rested under
it.

All know Poe's wonderful rhymes on the raven.
About B. c. 200, an exiled Chinese poet pictures
himself in grief and loneliness amid his volumes
of lore, in a poem half as long as Poe's, which
Dr. W. A. P. Martin has translated thus :

"On his bed of straw reclining,
Half despairing, half repining,
When athwart the window-sill
In flew a bird of omen ill,
And seemed inclined to stay."

Then follow seven other stanzas, which contain
much the same idea as that over which Poe
brooded :

" Gentle bird, in mercy deign

The will of fate to me explain,

Where is my future way ?

It raised its head as if 't were seeking

To answer me by simply speaking ;

Then folded up its sable wing,

Nor did it utter anything,

But breathed a * Well-a-day ' ! "

Confucius may, or may not, be held responsible
for admitting into his collection, without a word
of explanation, an ode which has done much to
perpetuate among his people a barbarous con-
tempt for women. However we translate it, the
idea is there. It occurs in a poem on the comple-
tion of a royal palace with good wishes for the

78 CHINA'S STORY

builder and his posterity. Dr. Martin thus gives
a rhyming translation :

" "When a son is born in a lordly bed
Wrap him in raiment of purple and red;
Jewels and gold for plartiungs bring
For the noble boy who shall serve the king.

" When a girl is born in coarse cloth wound
With a tile for a toy, let her lie on the ground.
In her bread and her beer be her praise or her blame,
And let her not sully her parents' good name."

Wonderfully vivid, in the poems, are the pic-
tures of the costnmes, the handsome figures, and
the easy dignity of popular officers at the court.
Fulsome praises of certain dukes, for their culture
and accomplishments, are set in tuneful lines.
The weaknesses of conceited young men of rank
are held up to ridicule. There are sentimental
travelers who give themselves up to melancholy on
contemplating the desolation of former capitals.
Famous buildings, once filled with gay lords and
ladies, now lying as ruins among the millet fields
or forgotten among men, compel reflection. The
moon inspired to much verse-making then as now.
We hear also the murmurs of the soldiers who
have been long absent on service, and are home-
sick. In many a case, an officer of character is
weary of life and complains that men of principle
suffer while worthless men escape punishment.

" Caught as the pheasant in the net,
That vainly for the hare is set.

THE FEUDAL SYSTEM 79

So those who dnty promptly do

Find cause their loyal zeal to rue," etc.

Many narratives show how virtuous magistrates
repress crime and licentiousness. The daring
charioteer is praised for his skill and speed in
the races, while the archers are honored in verse
for their rapidity, skill, and ability to hit the tar-
get.

The praises of many birds, insects, and animals,
that furnish human beings with good examples,
are sung by these men of the lute. The noxious
vermin and rodents are awful examples to the
lazy and vicious. One man is likened to a rat,
because he is uncultured and rude, or in Chinese
phrase "lacks propriety." In another case, a
rabbit catcher is praised as fit to be a prince's
mate. The country boy diligent in his business
stands before kings.

A very large number of the poems are about, or
by, or dedicated to women, but many more are by,
about, or in praise of or sympathy with soldiers,
so that one would think the feudal age was given
up wholly to love and war. The peasantry are
praised and misgovernment is condemned, in some
cases even when the people, while complaining of
their harsh treatment, profess still more strongly
their loyalty. Evidently there was plenty of gos-
sip and slander, for these furnish the theme of
many of the odes.

Step by step we can trace the rise of some of

80 CHIKA'S STORY

the feudal lords, and their growing opulence and
pride, which led to luxury in the castle, but which
meant more oppression and heavier taxes for the
people. Many of the poets lament over the frivo-
lous character of their princes, who are more fond
of displaying their robes than of attending to the
duties of government. Certain lines also read as
if the fashion reporter of a modern society journal
had been present, for the description of dresses is
quite detailed. There is no lack of sarcasm, irony,
jibe, and pun. One poet lampoons the gate war-
dens, who shine so grandly in their red knee
covers, but who really disgrace the court, looking
rather like pelicans that stand on the dam :

" And there their ponches cram,
Unwet the while their wings,
But take no part in toil or care,
Nor the State's welfare seek."

An accurate picture of lazy office-holders, who feed
at the public expense !

Thus in the early morning of Chinese history,
we find numerous poets and plenty of poetry.
Through all the centuries and to this day the Chi-
nese gentleman pens verses. The national store-
house of poetry is very rich. Verse-writing literary
parties and contests are very common. The Wor-
thies of the Bamboo Grove, a club of seven con-
vivial men of letters, about A. r>. 275, are among
those most renowned. Many improvised poems
are popularly known and quoted, the following

THE FEUDAL SYSTEM 81

stanza being among the most famous. A. tyrant
and usurper, jealous of Ms brother, who had tal-
ents as a poet, hoping to bring him to confusion,
commanded him publicly to compose an ode while
taking seven paces. Equal to the occasion, the
poet took seven steps while reciting these satiric
lines :

" A kettle had beans inside,
And stalks of beans made a fire ;
When the beans to their brother-stalks cried,
* We spring from one root, why such ire ? * "

CHAPTER VIII

<TETTVA iiyriTf n : THE GREAT WAUL

OUT of the crowd of petty feudal states, that of
Chin rose to be paramount. Its dukes then began
to take on the airs of emperors. This was shown
in the thoroughly Chinese fashion of their offering
the imperial sacrifices to Heaven. Their dynasty
lasted from 255 B. c. to 205 B. c. After various
struggles and much bloodshed, one of their princes,
221 B. c., borrowing from Whang Ti, who ruled,
according to tradition, 2769 B. c., assumed the
title of She "Whang -ti, or First Universal Em-
peror. From the " Land of Chin " has arisen the
name China.

For twenty centuries, the phrase Whang-ti,
which stands for the Universal Sovereignty claimed
by China, has represented the political theory un-
derlying the Chinese world of ideas in all eastern
Asia. It is the foundation principle of action by
the emperor and government. The doctrine is that
China, as the most highly civilized nation on earth,
and at the centre of the world, is supreme. All
other nations and rulers must accept the calendar
and etiquette of the Central Empire and be obe-
dient vassals, or else be considered as " outside
barbarians."

CHINA UNIFIED: THE GREAT WALL 83

Millions of men in China still hold this notion,
which lay at the root of the Chino- Japanese War
of 1894. Throughout the Middle Ages Tibet, An-
nam, Korea, Japan, and the whole fringe of nations
surrounding China were considered as more or
less dependent. Wien European rulers sent their
envoys and brought presents, it was given out pub-
licly, and often flauntingly advertised, that these
men coming from distant nations were tribute-
bearers to the great Chinese emperor, and the peo-
ple supposed that they were. It is true that the
pupil nations of ten reduced this idea of "tribute"
to mere trade, and profited by it. The Koreans,
for example, made more money out of it than did
the Chinese.

Japan's hostile encounter with this dogma in
1894 was over the question of Korea. She had
either to destroy it or be destroyed. Just as the
American republic came into collision with the
relics of European feudalism, the divine right of
kings, the pretensions of the Holy Roman Em-
pire, and other worn-out political dogmas, so for-
eign diplomatists have frequently encountered no-
tions of sovereignty in China which have long
been discarded elsewhere.

Our American ministers in Peking have always
refused to make the kow-tow, or nine prostrations,
before the Chinese throne. Japan led the nations
of Asia in obtaining audience of the Son of Heaven
in Peking with dignity and in refusing to treat

84 CHINA'S STOEY

on any principles but those of international law.
In fact, the Japanese claimed to have a Son of
Heaven of their own. Hence the difficnlty of mu-
tual agreement between the two nations. It was a
dogmatic collision, in which one party suffered
severely.

The emperor who unified China was only thir-
teen years old when he ascended the throne, B. c.
246. He showed unexpected ability. He built a
new capital and then gave his life's energies to
reconstructing the empire. He divided the country
into thirty-six provinces, putting over each one
three great officers who were directly responsible
to him.

The first founders of imperialism, of the Chin
dynasty, did not perhaps mean to abolish the feudal
states. Yet in order to secure national unity it was
necessary to do away with feudalism, which was a
perpetual source of weakness, besides being a men-
ace to imperial power. Since the northern Tartars
were ever pressing upon civilized China, national
strength was of the first importance.

In carrying out the policy of uniting all China,
the emperor was opposed on every hand by the
literary men, who lauded the traditions of the
past, and were hostile to the new plans of progress.
Under feudalism, the local and personal idea of
loyalty had been so cultivated that few men cared
for anything outside of their neighborhood. There
was no community of ideas, or feeling for any-

CHIXA UNIFIED: THE GREAT WALL 85

thing larger than one's petty state. No such thing
as patriotism in a broad sense existed. The unifier
of China therefore resolved to break with the past
and to fuse many local loyalties into one that was
national. He would help the people to see and ap-
preciate larger ideas, and teach them to live for
the commonwealth and not for a section. So he
swept away feudalism. He also burned the classics
and put to death many of the literati. For this he
has been held up to scorn by native historians.

In order to rear a monument of united China
and at the same time a defense against the Tar-
tars, he began the building of the Great Wall,
which still stands, after many enlargements and
frequent rebuildings. This massive line of brick
and masonry, over eighteen hundred miles long, Is
the most stupendous work of human industry in
the history of the race. Its top, wide enough for
six horsemen to ride abreast, is strengthened with
parapets, turrets, and towers. It strikes wonder
into the beholder, and appeals to the imagination as
it disappears from view in the distance. Surmount-
ing hills, valleys, rivers, and plains, it stretches
over a line which if drawn in America would reach
from Philadelphia to Kansas City.

The emperor's life was spent in restless activity.
He entered upon vaster enterprises as he grew
older. He opened new roads through the forest,
protected the frontiers with fortifications, diked
the rivers, built bridges, and in various ways

86 CHIXA'S STOKY

made life more comfortable and pleasant to the
people. Yet notwithstanding all his energies, he
was the slave of superstition. Always in dread of
death, he tried to secure from his magicians an
elixir that would secure for him a long life.

In later times, other emperors, imitating his
example, made the same search for some liquid to
lengthen life, A famous Japanese novel is based
upon the idea that from southern China a colony
sailed away to the Isles of the Eising Sun to ob-
tain what Ponce de Leon sought in Florida. In-
stead of coming back, the colonists remained in
the country. Then, the young men and maidens
marrying, began the peopling of Japan.

From earliest ages, the curse of China has been
the fear of evil spirits. To this day millions of
dollars are spent annually in paying sorcerers
and buying charms and inventions of various
kinds to drive away the malevolent beings that
overpopulate the sky, air, and earth. Many crafty
people make a living by preying on these fears.
As of old, witchcraft is the enemy of science and
religion.

The great emperor was told that he was pur-
sued by evil spirits and must sleep in a different
room of his palace every night, so as to puzzle
them. A like idea accounts for the crookedness,
irregular widths, and oddities of Chinese streets,
locations of gateways and houses, and many strange
customs concerning infants, weddings, and f uner-

CHINA UNIFIED: THE GREAT WALL 87

als. He employed seven hundred thousand men,
mostly criminals, or prisoners of war, wasting
millions of the people's money, to build a palace
as full of rooms as a honeycomb is of cells, in
order to mystify the demons. At the western end
was the Loadstone Gateway, or Barbarian-Kepel-
ling Gate. Through it, the people outside, that
is, the barbarians, entered from the west. Every
one was expected to disarm, but if any carried
concealed weapons they were drawn by force of
attraction to the side of the gate and held there !
Near by was the colossal palace built within the
imperial park or hunting-grounds. The central
hall was of such dimensions that ten thousand
persons could be assembled within it, and banners
sixty feet high could be unfurled. In spite, how-
ever, of this prolonged game of hide - and - seek,
death came to the emperor at last.

Not long after this his newly founded dynasty
(Yin) went to ruin. The empire had been greatly
extended and many of the northern tribes had
been brought under control, but so much con-
quered territory made the new China like a farm
that was too large to be tilled properly. The ele-
ments within were too discordant, and the result
was not a good illustration of e pluribus unum*
After a few years, the house of Yin fell to pieces.

China's feudal age had been so rich in dramatic
and spectacular elements that the imagination of
later ages loved to play upon it, and thus to en-

8S CHINA'S STORY

rich and embellish its pictures of life, as left by
tlie poets. Some could not easily adapt themselves
to a change in the order of things. The men who
remembered the old, picturesque life were opposed
to reform* and especially to the abolition of the
feudal privileges. This is the real reason why
they were handled so roughly, oppressed, perse-
cuted, and even put to death, and their books
burnt. This explains also why the man who uni-
fied the empire is said to have been " an enemy to
literature," a heinous crime in the eyes of the
Chinese, even wantonly destroying the old texts
and writings. Bat as in European history, we
must be careful not to believe too much of what
the monkish scribes wrote about the so-called
enemies of religion. We need not take at their
full value all the stories which the ancient writers
have told concerning the past. To this day the
literati are ultra-conservatives who, as a rule,
hate and oppose all changes, even when improve-
ments.

Before we pass from feudalism to centralized
government, we must note again, that if history
concerned itself only with wars and battles, we
should know little of the greater things which
make up human life and secure the prosperity of
the race. The wars of this epoch are hardly more
than shadows in the memory even of scholars,
while the words of Confucius still breathe and
his thoughts burn. Written history begins with

CHINA UNIFIED: THE GREAT WALL 89

Confucius, who, in B. C. 481, wrote the only ori-
ginal work ascribed to his pen. This is a chron-
icle of his native state, from B.C. 722, entitled
** Spring and Autumn."

It was during the feudal era that the three
greatest intellectual men of China lived. They
were philosophers, whose writings have influenced
seventy generations of China and the nations
around her. One of them has been the teacher of
the largest number of men and for the longest
time of any known in the history of the race.
These three men we call Lao-tse, or Laotius,
Confucius, and Mencius. Confucius was an active
man of affairs, a true teacher, and not at all the
prig that late ages have represented him to be.

The ideas of these great men concerning reli-
gion, law, morals, and philosophy, we can learn
easily, if we will, for many scholars have trans-
lated their texts and made commentaries ; but if
we wish to know what notions, fancies, and super-
stitions they held, we must question Chinese art
and literature, which give us copious answers.
We find that besides the living creatures that
roam the earth, fly in the air, or swim in the
waters, most Chinese believe in some that never
were on sea or land or in the atmosphere. They
see them in dreams, paint them in pictures, or
tell about them in stories.

Some of these, described by the ancient writers
before Confucius, have been so long in the na-

90 CHIXA'S STOEY

tional literature that the common people take it
for granted that they exist as real beings. Other
animals are associated with what is patriotic, or
sacred, like the creatures found in European
heraldry, or copied from actual life, on the na-
tional banners. The British lion and unicorn, the
French cock, the American eagle, the double-
headed birds of prey of Russia and Germany are
in the same patriotic menagerie.

The four chief supernatural creatures are the
unicorn, phoenix, tortoise, and dragon. The first
is believed to be the noblest form of the animal
creation and is the emblem of perfect good, be-
cause it is the incarnation of the five elements out
of which all things are made : that is, water, fire,
wood, metal, and earth. "With the body of a deer
and the tail of an ox, it lives to be a thousand
years old. The male is called ki and the female
lin, so the word kilin is generally used for the
species. The appearance of one of these beasts
upon the earth is an omen of good fortune and
prosperity. We find this soft -horned creature
often pictured on porcelain plates and dishes.

The phoenix being an omen of good govern-
ment, virtuous rulers use it as an emblem of their
office. TVitli the head of a pheasant, the beak of
a swallow, and the neck of a tortoise, it has much
of the look of majesty which is associated with a
dragon. Usually pictured as having the colors
and features of both the peacock and the phea-

MARBLE TABLET IN THE SUiUtER PALACE >EAB PEIPDfQ
Pewped bj Kten Lung, one ot the greatest oi the Monchu Emperors

CHINA UNIFIED: THE GREAT WALL 91

sant, it occupies a large place in Chinese art, on
coins, tablets, decorated faience, etc. In the clas-
sic books we are told that it sat in the court of
the traditional "universal sovereign," Whang Ti,
-who ruled 2697 B. a, whose wife taught the
people the art of rearing silkworms. Also when
the great Shun presided at the musical ceremonies,
the phoenix came with stately steppings to add
splendor to the occasion. Each of the five colors
which embellished the plumage of the phoenix is
typical of one of the virtues, benevolence, up-
rightness, propriety, knowledge, and good faith.
A name is given to each of the many intonations
ascribed to its voice.

The Kwei or tortoise is also a supernatural
creature. By stitching together a few scraps of
reference from the ancient books, the story has
been made that when Yu was draining off the
flood, a divine tortoise rose out of the river, pre-
senting to his gaze a scroll of writing upon his
back, composed of the numbers from one to nine.
The sage interpreted this, and made it the base of
his ninefold exposition of philosophy* Thus the
first "dragon-horse " carried upon his back the
elements of the future literature of the Chinese.
It is remarkable also that in the Japanese story of
creation, when Tlzume' danced before the cave to
entice out the sun goddess, she sang a song which
some interpret as the numerals, one, two, three, up
to myriads.

92 CHINA'S STOKY

There are whole books of marvelous tales
about the tortoise, which is supposed to exercise
a happy influence on the region in which it lives.
Its shell has always been the chief element in
divination. Another creature, which partakes of
the form and qualities of both the tortoise and
the dragon, has the power of transforming itself
and taking many shapes. Another tortoise-shaped
"god of the rivers " has enormous strength. For
that reason it is often sculptured in stone as the
support of huge monumental tablets planted im-
movable upon its steadfast back. In Korea and
Japan also, as in China, one sees this burden-
bearer carrying tons of marble or granite upon
its shell.

These classic legends are told, and their pic-
torial representations are common, in all the
countries influenced by Chinese civilization, just
as nearly all our fairy tales and imaginary beings,
such as the chimera, griffin, sea-serpent, Santa
Glaus, Rip Tan Winkle, the Golden Goose, and
other old friends of the nursery, have come to us
from the ancient nations from which we have de-
rived our culture.

The philosophy of fortune-telling is based on
the diagrams or symbols supposed to have been
found on the back of the dragon-horse, or tortoise,
and whole libraries of occult lore have been de-
veloped from it. The eight trigrams, or sets of
whole and broken lines, remind one of the Morse

CHIXA UNIFIED: THE GKEAT WALL 93

telegraph alphabet of dashes and dots. They re*
present the first developments from unity, or the
primal substance of the Yin and Yang, or the
positive and negative elements. These eight figures
are capable of sixty -four combinations. When
handled by the philosophers and diviners, they
are supposed to give a clue to the secrets of na-
ture and existence. The whole lines correspond
to Heaven, the celestial expanse, or the perfect
male principle ; while the broken lines correspond
to the earth, terrestrial matter, or the pure femi-
nine principle. Others represent the forms of
water, mist, fog, cloud, etc., of heat and light, of
thunder and wind, simple water, mountains, etc.
These all interwork in ceaseless activity, and
their evolution is indicated by combinations of
the diagrams. In the course of their movement,
they mutually extinguish and give birth to one
another, thus producing the phenomena of exist-
ence. Some Chinese books are filled with these
diagrams in various arrangements. Before the
fortune-tellers' shops or booths in the cities one
sees them, as indicative of the money-earner's
occupation. Most of the oddities seen on Chinese
streets, in popular art, in the toy shops, etc., are
as directly connected with Chinese philosophy as
are ours with the traditions and notions of OUT
ancestors.

In the case of all these mythical animals, the
general idea is to combine both strength and

94 CHINA'S STOEY

beauty, or to embody in one creature the power,
charms, and graces of the many different animals
inhabiting earth, air, and water. In mythical
zoology, whether in Europe or in China, the hu-
man mind is not content with plain reality, but
desires gorgeous and astonishing combinations.
The Chinese imaginary animals are hardly more
monstrous or amusing than those in the heraldry
of Europe. This beast-worship underlies all the
religions of Asia.

The idea of the five colors black, red, azure,
white, and yellow runs all through Chinese
thoughts about dress, furniture, heraldry, and
symbolism. Each of the five metals, five planets,
and five kinds of clouds has its particular color.
In the skies each color has an omen or meaning,
betokening a plague of creeping things, mourning,
war, destruction^ floods, prosperity, abundance,
etc. Each of these sets of things, or influences,
grouped in fives, affects every other. Since they
have to do with pleasure or pain, disgust or de-
light in the every-day life of the Chinese, one can
easily see how many mistakes foreigners are apt
to make in the eyes of the natives.

The Chinese take this method of arranging
their ideas according to number, so as to keep
their thoughts in order. They talk also about the
five blessings, which are long life, riches, peace,
love of virtue, and a noble end crowning life.
There are five grades of mourning, for parents,

CHINA UNIFIED: THE GREAT WALL 95

grandparents and ancestors, brothers and sisters,
uncles and aunts, and distant relatives in the line
of descent or ascent. The five punishments, each
with from two to five degrees of severity or dura-
tion, are beating with the bamboo ; bastinado,
or whipping on the soles of the feet ; banishment ;
transportation ; and death, either by strangling or
by decapitation. There are five atmospheric influ-
ences, rain, fine weather, heat, cold, and wind ;
each of which is dominated by one of the five ele-
ments, wood, metal, fire, water, and earth. These
invisible influences in the air are classified as per-
taining to heaven, while the five tastes or flavors,
salt, bitter, sour, acrid, and sweet, appertain to the
earth. So also there are five constituents of the
human frame, the muscles, flesh, bones, skin, and
hair, while the five inward parts of the body are
the heart, liver, stomach, lungs, and kidneys.

In Chinese cemeteries we see that many tombs
are made of five stones, set one upon the other in
the form of a base (earth), a cube (air), a sphere
(water), a saucer (fire), and flame-shape (ether),
representing the five elements of the human soul.

When people get married, they must be careful
to see that the proper elements in them are har-
monized. For example, the five elements are wood,
metal, fire, water, and earth. Every one born un-
der the signs of the respective elements has a dis-
position or character corresponding to the element
under which he is born, and of which he partakes,

96 CHINA'S STORY

or by which he is influenced. Thus, it would
never do for a woman of fire disposition to marry
a man born under the wood element, because
then there would be continual bickering or hot
water, and marital happiness would be entirely
burned up or would go off in steam. It is per-
fectly proper for a man of wood to marry a woman
of water temperament, because wood floats on
water* and it is expected that a husband must rule
his wife. It would not do for a man of earth dis-
position to marry a woman of water temperament,
lest he should be ultimately washed away, or lost
in her superior power. Even the dynasty is sup-
posed to be under the direct potency of one of the
five elements, which is believed to overcome the
element prevailing in the previous line of rulers.
Now when it is remembered that there are also
five planets and five points of space, and the five
arrangements of tune, the year, the month, the
day, the signs of the stars and zodiac, and the
great calculations of the calendar, which the as-
tronomers make, one can see what terrors there
are in store for those ignorant of Chinese etiquette.
The fortune-tellers, star-gazers, geomancers, and
tricksters of every sort, including the whole fac-
ulty of professors of tomfoolery and the sor-
cerers, have a rich field. Millions of dollars are
annually extracted from the pockets of the poor
people who believe in the guesses of palm-readers,
shufflers of the bamboo sticks, or readers of the

CHIXA UNIFIED: THE GREAT WALL 97

eight diagrams. These crafty folk, who get the
people's money, pretend that what they tell their
dupes is based upon profound calculations and
observation of things unseen by the average mor-
tal eye. Fortune-tellers abound on the streets of
the large cities, and are found all over the empire.
Heavy is the burden which poor China, from the
imperial palace to the beggar's mat, groans under
and has to pay for. No people will be more bene-
fited by science, or be given greater deliverance
and clearer vision through pure religion, than the
Chinese.

CHAPTEE IX

THE EMPIRE AND THE NORTHERN BARBARIANS

Our of the thirty-five dynasties known in Chi-
nese history, only two are reckoned as of purely
native origin, the Han and the Ming. As in Eng-
land, the founders of ruling houses were mostly
foreigners.

The Han line of emperors is divided by his-
torians into two branches and epochs, the Former
or Western Han, B. a 206 to A. r>. 25, and the Later
or Eastern Han dynasty, A. D. 25 to 214. It is not
necessary, in this little book, to name the em-
perors, some thirty in number, or to say much
about them, but only to speak of the characteris-
tics of the line and the age in which they lived.

Some of the traditions of the early ages, as in
the following example, explain the situation better
than descriptions could do. Han Sin, a grandson
of the prince of the Han domain, whose territory
was seized by the first Tsin ruler, was left so poor
that he had to get his breakfast out of the water
which flowed around the castle of his ancestors.
While the hungry boy sat in front of the moat,
waiting for a bite, a poor woman, who was steep-
ing flax near by, took pity on him and gave him
food. Becoming a soldier when grown, he rose

THE NORTHERN BARBARIANS 99

rapidly as a hero and served under the founder
of the "Western Han dynasty, and winning many
battles was made prince of the domain in which
lay his ancestral castle. At once he sought out
the old woman who had helped him, and made her
a present of one thousand gold pieces. He also
hunted up and gave a position of trust to a man
who had once dared him when a boy to show his
grit.

In later life, slandered by enemies to the em-
peror who was founder of the Han dynasty, Han
Sin expected to be put to death, for he knew how
often jealous men who reach power handle cruelly
their helpers, when the benefit of their service has
been exhausted. So Han Sin said, "When the
cunning hare is caught, the fleet hound goes into
the cooking pot ; when the soaring bird is shot,
the trusty bow is laid aside ; when the foe is van-
quished, the wise counselor is forgotten. The em-
pire is now established, it is right that I should
go into the cooking pot." He lived, however, some
years after this episode. Han Sin was one of the
" Three Heroes " most famous in Chinese history.

This being the first really national dynasty, the
Chinese, especially the northerners, still speak
proudly of themselves as the Sons of Han. The
good opinions of the scholars were won by repeal-
ing the decree against them, by collecting the
books which were hidden or had survived, and by
paying honor to literature and offering sacrifices

100 CHINA'S STORY

at the tomb of Confucius. The capital was lo-
cated in Shen Si, so as to be near the threatening
danger, the barbarians of the north, with which
the Chinese had to grapple. The Tartars had by
this time spread over the northern part of what
is now China proper.

These Mongolians, of the same stock as the
Huns and Turks, had no cities and never dwelt in
towns. Their homes were on their horses. Even
the children were taught, when very young, to
ride on the sheep's backs. Having no fields or gar-
dens, their animals furnished them occupation,
food, drink, clothing, means of travel, and power
in war. Tartar food was mainly meat and milk.
With their camels, asses, mules, horses, and sheep
as their daily care, they moved from place to place
in search of pasture. They fought on horseback,
charging with wild shouts against their enemies.

The eastern Tartars became the Manchus and
Koreans, and also made part of the composite peo-
ple of Japan. The western Tartars at various
times overran western Asia, the Roman Empire,
and medieval Europe.

So began and continued for centuries the strug-
gle of the Chinese with the fierce shepherds and
wandering horsemen of the north. In its nature,
this strife was much the same as that rivalry be-
tween Abel and Cain, which we behold in the
forefront of human history. One is a farmer.
He settles down to regular life, tills the soil, and

THE NORTHERN BARBARIANS 101

begins the civilization which means progress. The
other is a hunter, or a shepherd, who will not
plough the ground or live under a roof. If a
hunter, he finds his food in the forest. If a no-
mad, he moves over the earth, never abiding in
any one place. In either case he despises, or even
hates, the man of regular life. He is apt to con-
sider the property of the farmer or townsman as
fair game, and the tempting spoils of war. We
see the same picture of life in ancient Israel,
where the wandering Bedawin in the desert and
the settled Hebrews in the walled cities were ever
at war ; in early Japan between the Yamato men
and the Ainu; in Europe between the Romans
and the Teutonic barbarians, our ancestors, be-
tween the lowlanders and the Highlanders of Scot-
land, between our colonial fathers and the Indians;
and, indeed, in all human history.

War in China had occasionally its comic side,
and many things occurred to make one laugh as
well as to mourn. In one case these northern
mauraders, after making a raid, started back to
carry off their spoil. The Chinese emperor pur-
sued them, but " caught a Tartar,** and was obliged
himself to get into a walled city. There he might
have been captured, except for a smart trick
played upon his enemy* In the Tartar camp, the
barbarous chieftain's wife had no fear that her
husband would not conquer the Chinese men, but
she dreaded the Chinese women, lest with their

102 CHINA'S STORY

beauty they should steal away her husband's af-
fections. So the emperor stuck up on the city
walls puppets or lay figures, dressed and painted
to represent pretty Chinese girls. He then craftily
sent a letter to the Tartar chieftain's wife, saying
that he proposed to present these lovely maidens
to her husband. Instead of being glad to hear
this, the lady developed a fit of fiery jealousy,
and was not happy until she had persuaded her
husband to raise the siege and retreat. This inci-
dent made a great impression on the northerners,
who were so feared yet despised by the Chinese.
When a few years afterwards they made another
irruption, the emperor bought them off by giving
his own daughter to their leader and promising an
annual tribute of silk, wine, and grain. For cen-
turies, Tartar chiefs made invasions southward,
lured by the beauty of the Chinese women. Soon
we shall find these Tartar chiefs with Chinese
wives claiming the throne through their heirs.

During this era, the barbarians fought among
themselves. One tribe withdrew from Mongolia
and moved westward, beginning that great march
which continued for centuries. They settled in
Bokhara, and were part of the great movement of
the Huns that struck the Roman Empire so dis-
astrously in the era of its weakness.

One can see easily how much alike, and at very
much the same time, was the work of both the
Roman and the Chinese Empire in keeping back

THE NORTHERN BARBARIANS 103

the northern barbarians, who in Europe were the
Teutons, our ancestors, and in Asia were Tartars.
Yet on both continents and in both empires there
were victories in peace as well as in war.

One emperor, Wen-ti, was renowned for his
filial devotion. During his mother's last illness,
which lasted three years, it is said he never left
her apartments. He was a very humane ruler.
He reformed the code of barbarous punishment,
which hitherto had included branding on the face,
cutting off the nose, chopping off the feet, etc.
He also revived the study of literature and col-
lected manuscripts. His star,. in the constellation
named after him, is the abode of the god of liter-
ature.

Many stories are told of battle, ambuscade, ad-
vance, and retreat in these wars on the northern
frontier. To develop grand strategy and to make
a flank movement, one emperor invaded and an-
nexed the northern part of Korea, then much
larger than now, and including Liao Tung. Wu-ti,
who reigned fifty-four years, also extended the
confines of the empire westward and southward.
Although so active in war and letters, he was very
superstitious. He patronized magicians and sor-
cerers and indulged his sensual passions. One of
these necromancers professed to be able to bridle
and mount dragons and bestride the hoary crane,
and on these coursers of the air to visit the whole
universe ; to make snow out of silver and trans-

104 CHINA'S STOEY

mute cinnabar into gold. Centuries after Wu-ti's
time, these Chinese theories, brought into Europe
by the Arabs, greatly influenced our ancestors'
notions of alchemy and chemistry.

In popular tradition this emperor Wu-ti bears
two different characters. In the later wonder tales,
he is represented as being wooed by his fairy
visitor, whose title is the Western Royal Mother.
She dwelt on a famous high mountain, at the head
of her troops of genii and fairies, and from time
to time she had friendly interviews with favored
emperors. The magnificence of the mountain pal-
ace of this Empress of the West is glowingly de-
scribed in the romances, and on many a Chinese
dish, vase, or plate we recognize her and her
train and the story wrought in splendid colors.
Here, by the Lake of Gems, grows the peach tree,
whose fruit confers the gift of immortality, which
the queen bestows upon her favorites, and from
her mountain home she sends out the azure-winged
birds, who serve as her attendants and messengers.

A staff of generals, brave and daring, carried
the arms of Wu-ti into the heart of central Asia.
By B. c. 130 the tribes of Yunnan were brought
under imperial rule, and the boundaries of China
proper became very much as they are found to-
day. Through these conquests the Chinese became
acquainted with the countries of the West, and
the aborigines and barbarians received much Chi-
nese culture. Travel was then by land, for ships

THE NORTHERN BARBARIANS 105

able to cross the ocean were not yet known. Em-
bassies and caravans came from Parthia, Mesopo-
tamia, Bactria, and Afghanistan, by which many
Greek, Persian, and Hindoo ideas and inventions
were brought to the Middle Kingdom. Traffic
opened with the Roman Empire. Many things
made in China and inscribed with ancient Chinese
letters have been found in Egypt and various
parts of Africa and Europe. The magnetic needle
was used to guide travelers on land at night and
in cloudy and stormy weather. It was called the
South Pointing Chariot, because to the Chinese
mind the needle trembled in that direction.
Forcing their way over the mountains, Chinese
pilgrims reached India to bring back news of great
treasure lands scarcely known before. Buddhist
missionaries, for the first time, found their way
into China. The first two are said to have come
riding eastward on white horses, and about the
same time that St. Paul was moving westward into
Europe.

Thus began the long and glorious reign of the
Indian and Aryan religion in China, blending
Mongol and Hindoo ideals of life. Buddhism has
done much to uplift the Chinese people, cheer
them in affliction, and minister to their spiritual
wants as Confucianism could not, besides offering
the greatest of all hopes, life hereafter.

Tinder Buddhism, the Chinese landscape was
greatly changed. The country was covered with

106 CHINA'S STORY

shrines and sculpture, pagodas, monasteries, and
temples. The Hindoo and the Chinese were brought
together as brothers in the same household of faith.
Asia became like a garden. Gradually the ideals
of the two races and civilizations commingled. The
philosophy of India penetrated that of China. Of
the permanent and far-reaching influence of this
religion we may have more to say. From this time
the intellect of the Chinese is touched with a new
fertility, and their imagination stimulated. China
becomes the land of the pagoda. The law of ten-
derness and mercy sways life as never before.

One of the ministers of Wu-ti was a great ex-
plorer. He " pierced the void," that is, penetrated
into the extreme regions of the hitherto unknown
Far West, and discovered the sources of the Yel-
low River. Before his time this stream was be-
lieved to flow from the verge of Heaven, as a con-
tinuation of the Milky Way. Taken prisoner by
the wild tribes, he lived among them for many
years, brought back the grapevine, and re-taught
his countrymen the art of wine-making.

Around this Eiver of Heaven many pretty
stories cluster, one of the most famous being that
of the Ox-boy and the Weaver-girl. These lovers
meet on the night of August 7, every year, over
a bridge of magpies' wings. Many are the poems
recited, the songs sung, and the charming customs
based on this legend, both in China and in Japan.

In the long course of centuries most of the

THE NORTHERN BARBARIANS 107

famous personal adventures, exploits o travel, voy-
ages, martial deeds, and visits to wonderful caves,
mountains, or forests by the various Chinese heroes
became nursery legends or themes for artists,
a veritable Milky Way, full of light, glory, and
mystery. As with most other histories, beside that
of China, the people do not, cannot, retain in mem-
ory the dates, statistics, or exact details. They
hold the substance of these chiefly in poetry, art,
and pleasing story, retaining what is richest in
human interest.

CHAPTER X

THE RISE ANB TALL OP DYNASTIES

FROM about the time o the Christian era the
empire assumes the general form and features of
the civilization which we associate with the word
Chinese. The great question of national life and
growth presents itself in two forms, interior de-
velopment, and defense against enemies. From
within, evolution is according to the ideals of
Confucius.

Most of these movements, including battles,
sieges, rebellions, and the rise and fall of dynas-
ties, have very little meaning to us. Indeed, it is
almost impossible to get or hold clear ideas of the
personality of the leaders, whether generals or
statesmen. The length of China's history and the
great number of names and persons forbid any
attempt on the part of the average reader to keep
a clear picture of the details, though the general
course is clear. The subject, however, is divisible
into two parts : first, the struggle with the Tartars,
until the nineteenth century; second, the clash
with the Western world of ideas.

As elsewhere, success or failure decides what
name shall be given in history to the insurgents
against throne or government. If their plan fails,

THE RISE AND FALL OF DYNASTIES 109

it is rebellion; if it succeeds, it is revolution. The
Chinese, like other people, adjust their philosophy
to the facts. Rebellion is the greatest of crimes,
but if successful, Heaven has willed it so. In the
human method of reasoning, success is the mani-
fest will of God. The Chinaman always acknow-
ledges a fact. "Whatever is, is right."

No one can understand their government and
its policy until he realizes that through most of
their history the Chinese were a church-nation,
with a doctrine that is orthodoxy never to be
swerved from, while from time to time men who
have done great things for China were canonized
as saints. The emperor is the father and high priest
of the whole nation. The government is the em-
bodiment of China's ethical system. Confucius was
the incarnate conscience of the nation. He taught
that the emperor was the vice-gerent and the Son
of Heaven. The emperor is therefore the Father
of his People. He alone mediates between his sub-
jects or children and Heaven. The supreme duty
of each subject is obedience to the emperor. If
the emperor is not himself what he ought to be,
if the public works are neglected and the govern-
ment does not do what it ought, then the subject
takes no concern, since his own duty is fulfilled
in obedience to the emperor, who is the representa-
tive of Heaven and destiny.

The duties of the emperor and his subjects are
reciprocal. If there be peace and prosperity in the
empire, these are the results of his fatherly rule.

110 CHINA'S STORY

But if his subjects rebel, or things go wrong, then
the reason of it is, as the emperor usually acknow-
ledges, his own lack of ability or wisdom.

One curious feature is common to the state pa-
pers of the rulers of the Middle Kingdom and the
countries which follow Chinese customs : namely,
their frequent and public confession of sin. Em-
peror, mikado, king, and kinglet acknowledge
that in them lies the fault of misrule, calamities,
or rebellion. If a rebellion succeeds, the argument
is that Heaven has punished the sovereign for his
want of virtue.

The rebellion during the first Han dynasty, in
A. D. 9, in which a band of marauders known as
the Red Eyebrows figured prominently, is famous.
They were so named because they dyed their eye-
brows red. After a great battle, the Han dynasty
was restored, and is known as the Later or East-
ern Han dynasty, which lasted from A. r>. 25 to
214. The chief events were the introduction of
Buddhist priests and books from India ; the build-
ing of a dike, thirty miles long, to prevent the
overflow of the Yellow River ; the marching of an
army to the Caspian Sea, that is, as far as the east-
ern boundaries of the Roman Empire ; the engrav-
ing of the Five Classics on stone tablets ; and the
establishment, in A. D. 175, of public contests for
literary degrees. These became the basis of the
civil service examinations, which lasted as long as
the Empire.

THE RISE AKD FALL OF DYNASTIES 111

Henceforward employment in official life was
possible only to those who could pass an exami-
nation in the classics, the writing of verses, and
the composition of essays. This system came to
be very widely organized. Halls were built in the
district, province, and national capitals, and to
these came the young men from all quarters. Set-
ting out from their native villages, the candidates
would gather together and journey over the same
road, often carrying banners duly inscribed with
mottoes or the names of their homes. In thou-
sands of cells, with pen, ink, and paper, and their
food, also, they were shut up and carefully guarded,
to secure fair play for all. Here they remained
many hours and sometimes days. It frequently
happened that the ambition of some was too great
for their nerves or strength, and they were found
dead at their desks. The examiners and judges
assigned the questions and looked over the papers,
making the awards at an appointed time. The
successful candidate, on reaching home, was re-
ceived in his native village and ancestral temple
with banners, songs, speeches of welcome, and
other evidences of local joy. In time, many fool-
ish and amusing customs grew up. What we call
hazing, or ragging, was often boisterous and rough.

Those who attended were not always young.
Some beginning early in life might try again year
after year. The sight of gray-haired students was
very common. The life of many a literary man

112 CHINA'S STORY

was spent in examinations. It was not rare to find
a grandfather, father, and son at the same exam-
ination. Only a small percentage of applicants
were able to meet the test, but most of these re-
ceived office. In time, passing successfully through
other examinations, these became mayors of cities,
governors of provinces, or high officers of the em-
pire.

The large majority of those who failed would go
back home to become teachers, clerks, or literary
men. Educated men were thus found all over
China, and village schoolmasters were numerous.
As a class they were very conservative in their
notions, being opposed to changes in customs or
religion j but otherwise they were centres of cul-
ture for the uplift of the masses.

Following the Han dynasty came the period of
the Three Kingdoms of "Wei in the North, Wu in
the South, and Shu in the West, reminding one
of the division at Verdun of Charlemagne's em-
pire among his grandsons, whence began the evo-
lution of the French, Germans, and Italians; or
of the three countries of Great Britain, Scot-
land, England, and Wales.

While probably not so important in history,
this period A. D. 221-277 kindles the Chinese
imagination, because the novelists, romancers, and
artists have made it appear the most romantic in
all Chinese history. Outwardly it resembled the
age of chivalry iu Europe. To this day street story-

THE RISE AND FALL OF DYNASTIES 113

tellers and actors on the stage never tire of pic-
turing in word, act, or costume the events of this
era. According to fiction and drama, there were
a great many heroes and heroines who had amaz-
ing adventures, exciting escapes, and joyful tri-
umphs, quite equal to any to be found in our dime
novels. In China, Korea, and Japan, one of the
most popular books is a long romance, entitled
" The Three Kingdoms,' 7 so full of incident as to
remind one of a moving picture show. To a Chi-
nese boy, this era is as wonderful as is that of
Bruce and Wallace to a Scottish lad.

Among the instances narrated as historical was
that of three generals who took the " Peach Gar-
den Oath " by drawing blood from one another's
arms, mingling it, and drinking it, a custom
which has since become common to men engaged
in desperate enterprises. So terrible a fighter was
one of these generals that after death he was dei-
fied as the god of war, and is now worshiped
all over China. As with other gods of pagan
people, those of the Middle Kingdom were once
men. Indeed, the history of China and Japan and
other Asiatic nations is largely taken up with the
manufacture of gods, that are nothing more nor
less than common men, whose ghosts the igno-
rant and vulgar fear and worship. When Islam
came to China with its message, "There is no
God but God," it brought a truth to help and
uplift.

114 CHINA'S STOKT

It being difficult for the average man, who lives
and dies near the spot on which he was born, to
hold clearly the idea of one God, it is necessary
for him, he thinks, to believe in scores, hundreds,
thousands, and even millions of petty deities.
Every village, locality, mountain, and valley has
its gods. They swarm on the roof, cellar, well,
garden, swamp, wood, hills, and rivers. Temples
are crowded with their images. In a festival, or
pageant, the scholar can recognize their effigies
in threefold character ; as men who once lived on
the earth, as deities with names and titles, and as
fanciful creatures that cause terror, delight, or
merriment. Superstition keeps the people poor.
Armies of priests, diviners, and sorcerers fatten
and get rich by playing on popular hopes and fears.

The achievements and actions of these men-
gods have given rise to many proverbs or popular
sayings. Nearly every trade or craft has its patron
god. For example, Pan, an ingenious mechanic,
to avenge his father's death, carved an effigy in
wood, whose hand pointed toward the kingdom of
Wu. In consequence, a drought prevailed for the
space of three years. The men of Wu paid Pan
a large sum of money to have him cut off the
hand of the figure, which he did, and at once rain
fell. Hence the masons and carpenters of China
worship him, and the proverb "skillful in the
house of Pan " means much the same as u Preach-
ing to Buddha," or " carrying coals to Newcastle/ 1

THE RISE AND FALL OF DYNASTIES 115

Another military craftsman in Han days moved
his army so fast that he was said to have employed
"wooden oxen and machine-made horses," by
which some think are meant wheel-barrows, which
in China are used as land boats with sails and as
passenger cars, as well as to carry pigs, vege-
tables, and freight. He also invented a bow that
would shoot many arrows at one time, and his
system of tactics in eight lines of battle has been
much discussed.

In another case a defeated general, with only a
handful of men, beat his enemies " by means of
broomsticks." While in retreat, he occupied a
walled town that had been deserted, and ordered
his men to throw open the gates and stand with
brooms in their hands, while he climbed up into
a tower over the city wall and began to play upon
the lute. The enemy, suspecting an ambuscade,
retreated.

Incessant border wars followed the era of the
Three Kingdoms. The northern Tartars seemed
to make constant progress southward. They cov-
eted the high-bred women of the south for wives.
When victorious, their leaders demanded Chinese
princesses who married their conquerors, so that
in time these northern chieftains, through their
children, could claim to be heirs to the imperial
throne. Through these women, Chinese writing,
etiquette, learning, medicine, and general culture
were spread through the northern regions.

116 CHINA'S STORY

It became the custom also in this ancestor-
worshiping country that whenever the claimant
of the throne was successful, he wojzld seize the
old capital or establish a new one.

Casting out the ancestral tablets of those whom
he had overcome, he set up in their place those of
his own ancestors. Giving his dynasty an auspi-
cious name, he and his descendants would hold
the power as long as possible. Yet it became the
law of history that dynasties should rise and fall,
while the people, ever steadily gaining, remained.
Imperial families perished, but the nation lived,
becoming ever greater.

Yet while the Tartars and Chinese, like Greek
and barbarian, Roman and Teuton, mingled to-
gether, there were also many disintegrating forces.
In the north, as in a similar case and time in
Europe, there sprang up a great many small king-
doms, so that there were constant hostilities be-
tween the cultured in the south aud the rude
peoples in the north. The process resembled very
much that of the struggle of the Roman Empire
with the Teutonic barbarians and later of Chris-
tianity with northern paganism. On both conti-
nents there was first the successful invasion, the
destruction of the old power, and then the forma-
tion of new nations, governments, and types of
man. When the barbarians accepted and assimi-
lated the civilization of the conquered, they yielded
themselves to them and became like them. Con-

THE RISE AND FALL OF DYNASTIES 117

quest by force is always temporary. The victories
of peace are permanent.

This first great struggle with the Tartars ended
when the Sui dynasty, which held power from
A. D. 599 to 618, was established. The whole em-
pire was one household again, and those once
foreigners within the empire had yielded them-
selves not only to the superior civilization of the
conquered, but to their religion, so that to all
intents and purposes they were Chinese.

It was during this period of changing dynasties
that many stories were told in which sentimental
ideas about the moon and the jade stone, with
other notions in the world which is outside of
science, grew up, and these have been developed
by writers of fiction and poetry. As these still in-
fluence powerfully the Chinese in their art and
every-day life, it is well to glance at them.

The moon is the favorite home of the fairies,
and one wonders what the story-tellers would do
without this ornament of the night sky. The moon
is the refuge of lovely women when persecuted,
and at this terminal the famous characters in the
fairy world arrive sooner or later. Chinese chil-
dren, according as they are taught the fairy, the
Buddhist, or the Taoist legends, or all of them,
see three different figures on the moon's face.

The Archer Lord who, in B. c. 2435, served the
emperor, is famous as the moon's deliverer. When
the precious pearl of heaven was being swallowed

118 CHINA'S STORY

by a dragon, this worthy shot arrows into the sky
and gave deliverance from the monster. His wife
stole from him the drug of immortality which
grows in the moon-world and had been given him
by the Western Royal Mother, who dwells on the
sacred mountain -top, amid troops of genii and
the azure-winged birds, and in whose gardens the
precious cassia tree flourishes* With the coveted
booty the jealous wife fied to the moon, but was
changed into a frog, and there she is yet, and Chi-
nese children will trace the outline on the full
moon's surface on a bright night.

Other young folks, who have read the story of
the Man in the Moon, see Mr. Kang, who, for
some offense against the supernal powers, was
banished to the white planet and condemned to
labor without ceasing in trying to hew down the
cassia, or cinnamon tree, which grows there. As
fast as his axe falls, the wood closes again. So his
labors are endless and all for naught. This is at
root and in idea the same man in the moon, and
it is the same story told in Europe a thousand
years ago, of the sinner who broke the Sabbath
by gathering fagots of wood and is still carrying
them.

In the moon grows the cassia tree, at the foot
of which crouches the hare that pounds drugs for
the genii. As this noble tree is especially brilliant
at mid-autumn, those who take a degree at the lit-
arary examinations " pluck a leaf from the cassia

THE RISE AND FALL OF DYNASTIES 119

tree." At this time the moon is worshiped and
the children enjoy immensely the moon cakes
which are made in honor of the season.

The Japanese, who borrowed so many of their
ideas and legends from China, as we did most of
ours from the nations in Asia, tell us that it is the
reddening leaves of the cassia, or katsura tree,
that causes the effulgence of the autumn moon.
The islanders have stories also of moon-maidens
visiting the earth and returning to their silvery
palace in the sky. Chinese who admire a very
beautiful woman may call her The Lady of the
Moon, in reference to the one who fled with the
immortal drug.

Jade, or nephrite, is a real mineral, which, apart
from its beauty or comparative rarity, has a thou-
sand sentimental values. The word jade is one of
a hundred or more, like joss, junk, mandarin, cat-
sup (or ketchup), etc., which foreigners think is
Chinese, and Chinese think is foreign. It is of
Spanish origin, meaning colic (stone). Nephrite
is Greek, meaning kidney (stone). The mineral
was so named by our ancestors, who were often as
superstitious as the Chinese, because they im-
agined it would cure the stomach-ache or kidney
disease. The hard stone, worked into tools and
used as axes, knives, etc., is found all over the
world, but is believed to have come in every case
from China, where it is called yu. Being so costly,
the Chinese from ancient times, as the poems

120 CHINA'S STORY

edited by Confucius show, considered it their chief
gem, and made sceptres, bracelets, vases, and orna-
ments of it. To them it was the symbol of all that
is most excellent in human life and virtue. Like
heaven, of which it is an emblem, it combines the
highest strength with the purest effulgence. As
the most perfect expression of the positive mascu-
line principle in nature, various magical virtues
have been attributed to it. The mystical treaties
of the immortals are inscribed on tablets of jade.
These tell us that the liquid flowing from the jade
mountains, after a thousand years, becomes clear
as crystal. If to this liquid a certain herb be
added, the drinker of the draught attains millen-
nial life. By virtue of this " jade spirit beverage,"
he becomes incorporeal and is able to soar through
the air without wings, balloon, or aeroplane. It is
curious to read that this rock of jade stone, where
the genii live and whence flows the liquor of im-
mortality, is placed by ancient writers seventy
thousand li to the west. Of the jade tree blossom*
ing in the moon, we have already heard.

CHAPTEE XI

THE ERA OF PRINTING AND LITERATURE

WEN Ti, the first Sui Emperor (A. D. 589-
605) was an unusually able ruler. He practiced
what he preached, and faced the logic of his creed.
Ascribing the calamity of a famine to his own lack
of virtue, he made a pilgrimage to a high moun-
tain and there confessed his sins and prayed for
forgiveness. Attracted by his fame, envoys from
distant tribes visited his court. His successor,
Yang Ti, was infamous and extravagant. He built
many canals, compelling even the women to work
in digging them. One of these, connecting the
Yellow and Yang-tse rivers, became the Grand
Canal. In his luxurious palaces, he rivaled Solo-
mon in collecting beautiful women for his harem.

When Korea refused to forward the usual trib-
ute, the emperor sent an army of three hundred
thousand men into Liao Tung province, then part
of " the little outpost state on the eastern fron-
tier," and besieged the capital. The military oper-
ations, in A. D. 610, took place about where the
great campaign between the Russians and Japa-
nese was fought in 1904, another conflict being
waged near the Yalu River. The Chinese were
defeated, but the emperor insisted upon raising

122 CHINA'S STORY

another army and again attacking the Koreans,
whose splendid courage had been so manifested in
their fortresses. When in A. D. 615 this mighty
expedition moved eastward again, the Korean
king yielded and promised submission. Embassies
from Japan also visited the imperial court. After
campaigns with the Turkomans on the west, the
latter joined, as allies, with the imperial general
Li Yuan, who in 618 A. D. became master of the
empire and established the great Tang line of
rulers, one of the longest of China's dynasties.

In China the rulers change often, but the people
remain one. Her social system seems unchangeable.
Japan, on the contrary, that appears so elastic and
ready to change, has had but one imperial dynasty.
Over thirty acknowledged families of rulers have
occupied the Chinese throne. The contrasted sit-
uations in Japan and China are the results of dif-
ferent political theories. In China government
rested on the idea of virtue in the emperor, the Son
of Heaven, who alone has the right to worship
Heaven, bearing their sins and asking blessings
for his people. In Japan government rests on the
idea of the divine right of hereditary succession
to the throne, as one may read in the first clause
of the Constitution of 1889. In China no historic
dynasty has ever continued during three hundred
years. In Japan there has been one ruling house
since the written history of the sixth century, or
in legend from B. c. 660. When China shall have

ERA OF PRINTING AND LITERATURE 123

adopted real representative government, the re-
sponsibility will be, as it has not been, shared by
the people.

The arts both of war and of peace were highly
cultivated during the Tang period, from A. D. 618
to 905. The foot soldiers were equipped with
longer pikes and stronger bows. The cavalry, in
which the Tartars had hitherto excelled, was now
better organized and cultivated by the Chinese.
Most of the tactics and ideas of strategy which
were adopted in this age remained in fashion in
China down to the Kusso-Japanese War.

Still older is the Book of War, the military
classic of Chin, which was written in the fourth
century B. c., and which has been read and studied
in the whole Chinese world of culture. Even after
the Japanese, rejecting chariots, umbrellas, and
fans, conchs and kettle-drums, had adopted artil-
lery and rifles, the sayings of the two authors, Sun
and Wu, wrought into proverbs and maxims, fired
their resolution and carried them through the
Eussian war. The reason is that this classic, over
two thousand years old, deals less with strategy
and tactics than with the morale, or spirit, of com-
manders and their troops, regarding the state of
mind as of even more importance than missiles
and supplies. Uniforms and weapons change, but
not the mind of the soldier. Human nature re-
mains ever the same. The spirit of the true war-
rior, the coward, the brave man, the deserter, the

124 CHINA'S STORY

homesick follower, and the general traits of the
commander and the commanded have altered
little, if at all, in two thousand years. The Chinese
are governed less by sentiment than by reason.

Most famous of all in the Tang dynasty was the
emperor Tai-Tsung, who reigned from A. D. 627
to 650. He built a library in which two hundred
thousand volumes were stored and used. He held
discussions on morals and the best methods of gov-
ernment. There is a vivid picture of his court, in
the year 630, when embassies from many vassal
states and kingdoms, and even from the island
empire of Japan, were present. The variety of
languages and diversity and brilliancy of the cos-
tumes of the envoys excited much interest and
caused some merriment in the capital.

Tai-Tsung's generals overcame the Turkomans,
and he himself led an army into Korea, but here
again the notable valor of the Koreans, when be-
sieged, brought disaster and demoralization to the
Chinese, who had to retreat. But the Chinese per-
severed, and in 667 sent another expedition to
Korea. The city of Ping Yang the same before
which the great battles of 1593 and 1904 were
fought was besieged and surrendered. Korea
again became vassal, and was divided into five
colonies with Chinese overseers.

A fresh enemy appeared on the west when the
Tibetans, then called Turfans, became hostile.
Kokonor, or the Azure Lake, was the scene of a

ERA OF PRINTING AND LITERATURE 125

battle in which the Tibetans were beaten. A new
Tartar tribe invaded from the north, ravaging
and plundering. From its name, Khitai, comes the
familiar word "Cathay."

One of the longest reigns in Chinese history
was that of a woman, the empress Wu-Hu, who
ruled from A. D. 684 to 705. After her time, the
story of the Tang dynasty is that of decay, there
being many insurrections. Yet this epoch is bril-
liant in history, because in the year A. D. 785 the
Han-lin or Imperial Academy was founded. The
words mean Forest of Pencils. The hall in which
the scholars met was called later the Jeweled
Dome. In front of the gateway of the college grew
magnolia trees, so that it was also known as the
Jeweled Magnolias. At the examination, held
once in three years, only six candidates were
chosen. In Peking, in 1900, during the Boxer
troubles, the vast library of the Han-lin, with its
precious treasures, was destroyed by fire.

In this Tang epoch, also, the oldest newspaper
in the world, the official Gazette of the Court,
was founded, to publish the edicts of the emperor.
This era is well called the Augustan age of Chi-
nese literature, and its famous poets and philoso-
phers are regarded as models and their language
as the standard.

Nestorian missionaries had entered China as
early as A. D. 506, but in the eighth century they
increased in number and met with great success.

126 CHINA'S STORY

Christian ideas greatly influenced Buddhist philo-
sophy in China, but even more in Japan. There
still stands a tablet, upon which is recorded in
outline a summary of the Nestorian form of
Christianity, in Chinese characters.

The population of China proper was reduced
some millions by the wars, civil and foreign, which
marked the later days of the Tang dynasty. From
A. D. 907 to 960 is the epoch of the five dynasties
whose heads were Tartar chieftains or of Turko-
man origin. Here again the conditions in Europe
and Asia were much alike. This may be called
also the period of military despotism, and yet one
invention made at this time was destined to have
a large influence upon mankind. In 932 the art
of printing with wooden blocks was invented, and
the Five Classics of Confucius and the Four
Books were printed. Later on, " living types," or,
as we call them, " movable " types, were invented
and much used in Korea and China. There is no
convincing evidence that printing was invented in
Europe. It was probably brought there out of
China, where it had been used for centuries,
during the Mongol invasions. Once in Germany
and the Netherlands, this Chinese art came rapidly
into general use.

During the Tang era, the teachers and mis-
sionaries of both Taoism and Buddhism were very
active. It was an age of toleration and brother-
hood. A constant stream of learned Hindoo

ERA OF PRINTING AND LITERATURE 127

priests came into China, bringing books, writing,
new ideas in ethics, art, literature, and architec-
ture. At one time there were three thousand
priests from India and ten thousand Hindoo fam-
ilies in China. Gradually Aryan thought pene-
trated the minds of scholars. Sanskrit script gave
the Chinese the idea of an alphabet, spelling by
syllables, and an easier system of writiog for the
common people, thus helping greatly the spread
of general education. New popular festivals were
instituted. Temples, pagodas, extensive rock carv-
ings, monasteries, and nunneries began to be
very numerous. Not a few shrines became re-
nowned for the holy relics of the saints, and
gained gradually a reputation for miracle-working
which drew myriads of visitors thither, thus stim-
ulating habits of travel and pilgrimages. In spite
of all opposition from the literati and even from
the nation's great high priest, the emperor, Bud-
dhism flourished until it reached its culmination
of popularity in the twelfth century, when it
began to decline.

It was not the ethics of Buddhism, but its doc-
trines of hope, consolation, retribution, and of the
boundless compassion of the Buddha, in new in-
carnations of mercy, that made it acceptable to
the masses. Confucianism attracts intellectual men
and works for order and government, but it means
also the subjugation of women. It has little in-
spiration or aspiration. Its head and front is

128 CHINA'S STORY

Heaven, or impersonal Law. The " high church "
Buddhists reckon a regular succession of patri-
archs from the Buddha, or Shakyamuni of India,
who lived in the sixth century before Christ.

Taoism, taking more and more the form of
magic, alchemy, the attempted mastery of matter,
ran off into mystical speculation upon corporeal
immortality, the elixir of life, alchemy, transmu-
tation of metals, aviation on dragons, cranes, etc.

One of the Eight Immortals of the Taoists is
often met with and easily recognized in the art of
the Chinese world, being an especial favorite with
Japanese artists also. This eighth-century man
rode on a white mule, which carried him thousands
of miles a day. When he halted he condensed the
beast into small compass-, folding it up and hiding
the skin in his wallet. When he would travel
again, he spurted water from his mouth, when
presto ! the mule resumed his proper shape. Pre-
ferring the life of a tramp, he declined even the
invitation of the emperor to be a priest at court.
He " became a guest in heaven," that is, entered
upon immortality without suffering bodily dis-
solution, and in his honor one of the million or
more shrines in the empire was erected.

Another famous immortal who practiced reflec-
tion and self-examination, when not in a mood
for thought, could put his supernal self into a
gourd. Then at will he would uncork the vessel
and let his visible soul be projected upon the

ERA OF PRINTING AND LITERATURE 129

clouds or air, and thus study his own personality.
We meet with him often in the art of Japan and
China on porcelain, vase, or sword-guards, at his
favorite occupation of enjoying his dual person-
ality.

Progress in art was also notable during the
Tang era, the impulses of which were felt in
Korea and Japan, notably stimulating and devel-
oping the schools of artists at the capitals, Sunto
and Nara, and hastening the erection of the colos-
sal images of Buddha in both pupil countries.
Especially is this true of the paintings of the
dragons as symbols of power. Buddhism enriched
the folk-lore, in which the dragon holds so promi-
nent a place that we must here glance at this
creature, the cyclopedia of all the vital forces in
nature.

There is a famous story about the Dragon
Mother, who is a deified being, worshiped at a
celebrated temple. There was once an old woman
who gained her living by catching fish. One day
she found an enormous egg, which she carried
home. Out of it came forth a creature which
aided her in fishing. By accident the old woman
cut off a part of the creature's tail, whereupon it
left her and she thought no more of it, except to
mourn her loss, for she could not catch as many
fish as before. Some years afterwards, this same
creature returned in such splendor that the old
woman at once recognized it as a dragon. The

130 CHINA'S STORY

emperor summoned her to give an account of her
wonderful adventures. She started to go, but
when halfway to the Court she was overcome
with a longing for home. Thereupon a dragon at
once appeared and transported her in an instant
to the banks of the stream where she lived. As
the story went down the ages and others hoped to
receive similar summons to the Court and ride on
the dragon's back, this fish woman came to be
revered as a divinity and the patroness of navi-
gators on the West River, where the sailors still
worship her.

The Chinese do not seem to have used balloons
or to have had recourse to aeroplanes, but there
are a great many stories of aerial coursers, who
on the backs of dragons or storks traverse swiftly
the atmosphere on their important errands.

" High mounted on the dragon's back he rode
Aloft to where the dazzling cloudlands lie,"

is about the way some romances begin. There are
also hundreds of stories of Taoists and wise men
of the mountain, or sennin, taking these voyages
in the air with dirigible creatures. On the backs
of whales or great fishes, also, they bring art,
letters, and material blessings across the sea.

More important, even, than the rise and fall of
a dynasty was the discovery in southern China of
a plant from whose leaf a delicious, perfumed,
mildly stimulating drink could be brewed. As a

ERA OF PRINTING AND LITERATURE 131

rival of the grape, and filling " the cups that cheer
but not inebriate, 5 ' tea has been a blessing to
China and the race. The use of tea helped might-
ily, thus early in their history, to make and keep
the Chinese a temperate people.

The tea-plant is the queen of the camellia fam-
ily. It was not always used as it is now. The
method of serving it has passed through several
stages of evolution in social use. Originating in
southern China, probably during the Han era, it
was known first in botany as a medicine, and its
leaves were made into plasters for rheumatism.
As a drink, the Taoists first made it known, for
with them it was an ingredient in the elixir of im-
mortality. It is alluded to in the classics as Tou,
from which the modern character tcha, cha, tea,
or te, is derived. The Buddhist monks, on coming
from India into China, were delighted to discover
its exhilarating qualities, and they brewed it dur-
ing their night vigils to prevent sleep. Indeed the
legend of its origin is associated with religion.

Dharma, the holy saint from south India, was
accustomed to give himself to midnight devotions.
One night nature revolted, and he fell asleep
until morning. Waking up in horror at his lapse
from holiness, he pulled out a sharp knife, cut off
his eyelids and threw them on the ground. Presto!
there sprang up twin plants, each with pearly white
flowers. Steeping the leaves in hot water, he bade
good-by to fear. He told his brethren the secret,

132 CHINA'S STORY

and hencef orth holy men were kept from nodding
by the cheering brew.

In Japan, this saint, who first saw the tea-rose
and leaf, is called Daruma, and is represented as
legless. He is honored as the founder of the Zen
sect of contemplation. In red-painted wood, squat,
and round as a pumpkin, with terrible, lidless
eyes, his effigy serves as the tobacco shopman's
sign of trade, though he deserves a better fame.
His lower limbs dropped off after he had sat in
meditation during nine years.

Chinese poets called their new drink "froth of
the liquid jade," and emperors proffered cups of
it as a reward of honor for eminent service. Out
from the Yang-tse valley, the use of tea spread
abroad, not reaching Japan, however, until A. p.
805, nor becoming a common drink in the islands
until the twelfth century. By slow evolution, its
use blossomed into an aesthetic cult called cha-yo-
yu, or tea-decoction. Why, we shall see.

In the beginning no one thought of steeping tea.
Between its early application as a cold plaster for
rheumatism and its modern use in ice-cream (in
Japan), the art of making tea had to pass through
three stages requiring heat, or fire.

In the beginning the leaves were steamed,
crushed in a mortar, and made into a cake. Then
with rice, ginger, salt, orange-peel, spices, milk,
onions, or what not, men boiled the tea, even as
the Mongolians and Tibetans do to-day, and as

ERA OF PRINTING AND LITERATURE 133

was often done at first in Europe. Indeed the
Russians, and we after them, still use a slice of
lemon in the infusion. This is a survival of the
old custom. To this day "brick tea" is the kind
most imported into the land of the Czar and the
samovar.

We should all read Mr. Okakura's delightful
work, " The Book of Tea," in which we are told
that the poet Luwuh of the Tang dynasty, who is
the tutelary god of the tea-merchants in China,
wrote a book in three volumes, entitled the Tea
Classic, treating of the history, nature, and prepa-
ration of the herb and describing " the twenty-four
members of the tea equipage." Tea drinking pow-
erfully influenced the development of the ceramic
art in China. Luwuh considered blue as the ideal
color of the teacup. He used cake tea. In the time
of the Mings, when the steeped leaves were used,
white porcelain was preferred.

During the Sung dynasty, whipped tea, or a
frothing liquid made by pouring boiling water on
powdered tea and churning it round with a whisk
of split bamboo, came into fashion. Thus the
second school of tea was formed.

After the Mongol invasion, tea was steeped and
drunk in modern fashion. Not till late in the
Ming dynasty did Europe become acquainted with
tea, and then only according to the one fashion of
infusion, steeping, and decoction. The introduc-
tion of hot drinks had a tremendous and far-

134 CHINA'S STORY

reaching influence on social life in China, but
probably even more upon table customs and the
ceramic art in Europe, where it gave woman her
proper place at the head of the table. Among the
poorer Chinese, who could not afford rich wine in
the nuptial cup, tea became the recognized drink,
and oftentimes to this day, among them, the only
marriage ceremony consists in the woman's mak-
ing tea for the man and proffering him the cup.

In the Far East, tea is associated with philoso-
phy. As with some other things borrowed from
the Orient, we took the ceramic part of the gift,
the cup's cover, upside down, turning the lid into
a saucer.

CHAPTEE XII

CHINA'S EXPERIMENT IN SOCIALISM!

AFTER the period of military despotism (A. D.
907-960) China was virtually divided between
the Tartars of the north, of whom the Kin, or
Golden, was the most famous tribe, and the Chi-
nese, whose imperial house or family was the
Sung (A. D. 960-1333), with their capital at Kai
Feng in Honan. The Sung dynasty is usually
reckoned as the Sung (A. D. 960-1126) and the
Southern Sung (A. D. 1127-1333).

The emperor, Tai Tsu, made it the aim of his
life to consolidate the empire. He took away from
the provincial officers the power of life and death
and centred them in a board of punishments at
the capital. He made expeditions against the
Khitans into Liao Tung, but without success. He
bestowed posthumous honors on those descendants
of Confucius who had lived during the previous
forty-four generations, and exempted from taxation
all the future descendants of the sage, a privilege
which these gentlemen, still among the ablest men
in the empire, yet enjoy. Beside other reforms,
literature was encouraged, so that this era is re-
membered as one of the most brilliant for its
schools and education and the number of great

136 CHINA'S STORY

writers, one of them being the standard historian,
Sze Ma Kwang, whose history of China fills three
hundred and fifty-four volumes.

A Chinese library differs greatly in appearance
from one of ours. We must not think of heavy
octavo books, with stiff bindings of boards, leather,
or cloth. A volume in Chinese is made of thinner
and tougher bamboo paper, and is much smaller
and lighter in weight than the average one in the
West. The books lie flat, one upon another, piled
upright, in boxes, and do not stand on their
edges, as with us. The binding being of paper, or
thin pasteboard, the leaves are stitched at the
sides with silk and the title is marked in ink on
what with us would be the lower edge. Where
we end they begin, and the reading is in col-
umns from top to bottom and from right to left.
The Chinese call us "the crab-writing barba-
rians."

As most of the interesting events of history, or
the situations in Chinese social life, are painted on
porcelain, one can easily recognize a scene in the
life of a child who was destined to grow up and
become the famed historian, Sze Ma Kwang. When
several children were playing together, Kwang,
with his playmates, leaned on the rim of a large
porcelain vessel in which tame gold-fish were kept.
One boy lost his balance and fell into the water
among the fishes. The child would have been
drowned, except for the presence of mind of

CHINA'S EXPERIMENT IN SOCIALISM 137

Kwang. The other boys, screaming with terror,
ran away, but Kwang took up a large stone and
smashed the vessel with it. Fish, boy, and water all
rushed out. The jar was spoiled, but the boy was
saved.

Proverbs and bright-colored pictures, on many
a cup, plate, saucer, and vase, keep alive the mem-
ory of the boy Kwang. As a man he became a great
statesman. He opposed strenuously the doctrines
of a famous populist, or socialistic agitator, Wang
(1021-1086 A. D.), whose schemes of reform in-
cluded new methods of taxation and tenure of
land, besides radical notions as to economics and
philosophy which would make paternalism the
form of government. The changes proposed were
so far-reaching that wise men called them revolu-
tionary. Yet the populace, for a while, hailed
Wang as the savior of society.

Even in this era, A. D. 1068, rich men controlled
the market, bought from the poor their crops, and
sold at the highest rate possible, which was often
exorbitant. The emperor backed the agitator when
he put into practice his new ideas. Wang pro-
posed that the taxes should be paid in produce
and that the government should purchase the sur-
plus, to be distributed according to the demand
and sold at a reasonable rate in different parts of
the empire. In a word, the commerce of the coun-
try was to be wholly a state affair. That the state
should advance money to the farmers, at a very

138 CHINA'S STORY

low rate of interest and to be repaid after the
harvest, was another part of the scheme.

In the enrollment of the militia, it was proposed
to divide the whole empire into groups of ten,
fifty, and five hundred families under the control
of graded officers. Every family with more than
one son was to furnish a soldier. In time of peace,
they were to follow their ordinary business, but
when danger threatened they were to assemble on
call.

Incomes were to be taxed to build public works.
Instead of compulsory labor, each family was to
be assessed according to its income. The same dif-
ficulty was experienced then as at the present time
in finding out just what the income was. Another
enterprise was to publish the classics at public
expense, with Wang's peculiar ideas as commen-
tary.

This great experiment in socialism, despite vio-
lent opposition, was tried ; but the result was total
failure. Customs could be changed, but not human
nature. Dishonest and rapacious men took advan-
tage of their position and robbed the people, so
that, instead of the expected benefits, the general
poverty and distress were increased.

This attempt at populism led the wisest men,
especially the two brothers Cheng (1032-1111
A. i>.), to re-read the classics and to think long
and deeply, not only on the nature of man and
Heaven (or God), but also on the subjects of pro*

CHINA'S EXPERIMENT IN SOCIALISM 139

perty and taxes, rights and duties, and on gov-
ernment and social organizations generally. The
result, after a hundred years of thought and dis-
cussion, was the complete restatement of the Con-
fucian system, by Chu Hi, of whom we shall tell.

By this time also, when Normans and Saxons
in England were blending to form the English
people, Taoism and especially Buddhism in China
had greatly influenced the minds of men, so that
scholars, who began the long and hard thinking
necessary for clearness and re - statement, had
abundant material upon which to work. The most
eminent of all the philosophers was Chu Hi (1130
1200). He took his second degree at the literary
examination before reaching his twentieth year.
Being appointed a mandarin, he first studied for
some years the systems of Buddha and Lao Tsze,
and then mastered the writings, not only of Con-
fucius and Mencius, but also of the famous schol-
ars, critics, and commentators who for a century
had been reexamining the doctrines of Confucius
in the light of socialistic and other theories of the
times.

Chu Hi's renown was so great that the emperor
appointed him adviser at the court, and then gov-
ernor of Nanking. Continuing his studies, he vin-
dicated and re-stated the orthodox doctrine handed
down from the past, but with additions ranging
out into all departments of human thought. Un-
til the twentieth century Chu Hi's commentaries on

140 CHINA'S STORY

the classical writings formed the aids to reflection,
the strategic points of metaphysical discussion,
and the recognized standard of what gentlemen in
eastern Asia ought to believe. Chu Hi's teachings
so developed Confucianism, that from heing merely
a system of rules and observances it became both
a philosophy and a creed for centuries.

We foreigners think of the three old religions
of China as separate in idea and history. To the
average Chinese, in every-day life, they are one.
The ancestral cult teaches manners and morals.
Buddhism, the Aryan faith from India, gives hope
of the hereafter. Taoism is a system of philosophy
for the thinkers and of superstition to the popu-
lace. In reality, though there are three religions
there is no God. In the age of Sung (A. D. 960-
1333) religion, literature, industry, and commerce
were greatly developed under the intellectual
stimulus and blending of ideas so notable in this
tolerant era. Buddhism henceforth was less the
faith of the educated than of the learned, while
Confucianism, greatly affected by the thought of
India, took on the form of a creed as well as a
ritual of worship and rule of conduct. In Taoism
the development was in the line of outward organ-
ization.

Taoists, as we have seen, are very " high church "
in their notions, and their doctrine of succession is
held to almost as rigidly as in Buddhist, Mahom-
etan, or Christian countries. Chang Tao-ling, born

CHINA'S EXPERIMENT IN SOCIALISM 141

A. D. 34, turned aside from royalty's favors and
lived in the high mountains, cultivating alchemy,
purity, and mental abstraction. Receiving instruc-
tion from a book supernaturally received from
Lao Tsze himself, he found the elixir of life and
confided the secret to his son. Then, at the age
of one hundred and twenty-three, he compounded
and swallowed a draught of it, and ascended to
the heavens to enjoy the bliss of immortality. At
this point legend turns into history. His descend-
ants were in 1016 endowed with land and later
honored by the Mongol emperors. To this day
the family claim the headship of the Taoist sect.
Like the Lamas of Tibet, the succession is per-
petuated by the transmigration of the soul of each
successor of Chang Tao-ling into the body of some
infant or child of the family, whose heirship is
supernaturally revealed as soon as the miracle
is effected.

Besides being the era when printed books were
put into the hands of school children for their use
in the study of the classics, the Sung period was
famous for its poetry and imaginative literature.
In the beginning, the far-off ancestors, the pre-
historic people of China, were little better than
simple savages, but when they came to conscious-
ness of themselves, and were filled with the won-
der of life, they began to think of their past. Kea-
soning upon this, they inquired as to their origins*
Then men with active imagination took to the

142 CHINA'S STORY

making o mythology and the formulating of tra-
ditions. Skillful penmen set down the manufac-
tured myths in attractive literary form, while with
songs and dances, art and commemorative customs,
these traditions became articles of the national
faith. On the basis of these primitive ideas, sym-
bols, animals, signs, and numerical groups have
developed during forty centuries the poetry, phi-
losophy, literature, romance, drama, sculpture, and
pictured representations that make the Chinese
seem so peculiar to us. In aword, there was during
the Sung period such an outburst of literary splen-
dor that this is often called the Augustan age, or
the Elizabethan era of Chinese literature. The
larger part of the mythology, poetry, and stand-
ard literature, apart from the ancient classics, dates
from this time.

Of one of the most famous poets, Su Tang Po,
it was written that " under his hands, the language
of which China is so proud may be said to have
reached perfection of finish, of art concealed.'*
One of his poems, called "The Song of the
Cranes," has been thus rendered into English,
though " translation is treachery."

" Away ! Away ! My birds fly westward now,
To wheel on high and gaze on all below ;
To swoop together, pinions closed, to earth;
To soar aloft once more among the clouds;
To wander all day long in sedgy vale,
To gather duckweed in the stony marsh.

CHINA'S EXPERIMENT IN SOCIALISM 143

Come back ! Come back ! Beneath the lengthening shades,
Your serge-clad master stands, guitar in hand.
'Tis he that feeds you from his slender store,
Come back ! Come back ! Nor linger in the west."

Progress was not confined to the domain of the
intellect. Industry, enterprise, trade, and com-
merce expanded* There were now four well-known
and well-traveled routes westward to India and
the Mahometan countries of Asia, while by sea,
Hindoo, Javanese, and Arab fleets of trading-
ships made the ocean less lonely. The ship's com-
pass came into general use. Banks and cash-shops
were numerous at the seaports. China has always
had a currency of perforated copper, brass, and
iron "cash" strung on strings, and paper money,
but no silver or gold coinage. The Arabs proba-
bly taught the idea of using silver by weight, and
Sycee or " shoe " silver, looking like little white
trays or boats, passes as money. In keeping ac-
counts, the terms taels, mace, candarin, and li,
according to the decimal system, were used, but
there are no coins corresponding to these names,
which are theoretical, like the English "guinea."

The size of some bank notes is peculiar, 12x8
inches, and the reading matter is very interesting.
On one of these under the Ming dynasty and of
the date A. D. 1399, it is stated that this note is
current as money everywhere in China (all under
Heaven), and that counterfeiters will be beheaded.

With the progress of civilization, the lot of the

144 CHINA'S STORY

average woman became less one of outdoor toil
and more of indoor work and accomplishments.
In mythology, in fairy lore, and in actual history,
woman is ever the weaver and spinster. The star
maiden in the Milky Way, or River of Heaven,
works at her loom. On earth it is the wife of the
Heavenly Emperor who rears silkworms and
teaches the wearing of silk. In the feudal age, we
read of flax and hemp and see the women steeping
the stalks in the castle moats. Not, however,
until the Sung era do we hear of Chinese women
weaving into cloth the white blossom of the cotton
plant, which is probably the gift of the Semitic
world.

It was a great day for China when cotton was
brought from the West. It was not cultivated in
China until the time of the Sung dynasty. Even
then the Chinese hemp and silk growers (just like
the linen weavers of England in 1721, when people
were fined for wearing muslin) were so opposed to
it that it was not until Mongol times that the plant
was common throughout the empire. It is sown
in June and gathered in October. After Sung
times, instead of grass and hemp cloth for the
poor and silk for the rich, the common people
could have clothes of muslin, made thin for sum-
mer and by padding rendered suitable for winter.
The spinning-wheel and loom now took their places
in the houses of the peasantry, and most garments
were home-made.

A TYPICAL CONFUCIAN TEMPLE IN A PROVINCIAL CAPITAL
IX CENTRAL CHINA

CHINA'S EXPERIMENT IN SOCIALISM 145

In a country where forestry was unknown and
fuel dear, so that most people had to do without
fire in their houses during the time of snow and
ice, the Chinese kept warm by putting on more
clothes. Thus they would describe the temperature
by saying it was " two coats cold," " three coats
cold," etc. The day on which they " took off cot-
ton," that is, removed their padded or thickly lined
garments for lighter wear, formed a point in the
calendar. Out of cotton the Chinese weave many
fabrics, such as nankeen, which was formerly ex-
ported. Now it is all used at home, and the Chi-
nese import both raw cotton and cotton cloth to
the value of millions. Most of their native textiles
are dyed with indigo, so that China has been called
the Land of the Blue Gown. With steam mills
equipped with the latest and best machinery, cot-
ton cloth is woven for the clothing of millions.

CHAPTER XHI

CHINA INVAJDED BT THE MONGOLS

THE great northern region beyond the Chinese
wall is the nursery of many nations. These built
up no civilizations of their own. Issuing forth,
from time to time, as clouds of horsemen and con-
quering hordes, they seemed, while ravaging the
abodes of luxury, to be only destroyers. Yet these
emigrant peoples infused fresh blood into old com-
munities. Bringing in new ideas of freedom and
toleration, they added new vigor to humanity.

Looking from the point of view of A. B. 1000,
one could hardly believe that, out of this mysteri-
ous north, despite the many and long struggles of
the Chinese with Tartar tribes, there would emerge
another body of men that should completely sub-
due not only China, but nearly all Asia and a
large part of Europe.

We have heard of the Kin tribe of Tartars
before. In 1125, after overcoming their former
rulers, they made themselves independent. Their
chief took the title of Grand Khan and founded
a dynasty named the Kin, or Golden. In battle
they put in the forefront their heaviest men and
horses, clad in the stoutest armor, the warriors be-
ing armed with pikes for charging and short swords

CHINA INVADED BY THE MONGOLS 147

for close combat. In each company of fifty, twenty
soldiers were at the front, while thirty more lightly
armed men were kept in the rear, until the heav-
ily equipped warriors had made their attack. Then
the light cavalry rushed forward, shot their arrows,
threw their javelins, and rode away swiftly, mak-
ing way for fresh reinforcements. This method,
repeated several times, completely hroke up the
ranks of the opponents hy throwing their soldiers
into confusion. Then the whole body of Tartars
charged, plying pike and sword. They usually won
by the rout and massacre of their enemies.

Tempted south by the love of conquest and the
riches of the empire, they captured in A. D. 1125
the capital Kai Feng. They forced the Chinese
to promise an indemnity of five million ounces of
gold, fifty million ounces of silver, ten thousand
oxen, ten thousand horses, and one million pieces
of silk, to recognize the victor's title of Khan, or
emperor, to cede a large part of northern China,
and to give up the emperor's brother as a hostage.

No sooner had these northern horsemen turned
their backs than the Chinese, repenting of their
promise, began to raise an army to resist the Kins.
When they heard of this, the northern hordes
quickly reappeared and increased the punishment
of the Chinese. They demanded more land and
provinces, carried the imperial family away into
captivity, compelled the promise of one hundred
thousand ounces of gold, two hundred thousand

148 CHINA'S STORY

ounces of silver, and ten million pieces of silk.
We do not know that tie promise of such an
enormous indemnity was fulfilled. Worse than all,
they appointed one of their own nominees to rule
over the Chinese Empire, but as their own vassal.

All the northern provinces were now under the
control of the Kin Tartars, who, however, were
unable to complete their conquest of that part of
China south of the Yellow River, for the Chinese
fought with the energy of despair. The Southern
Sung (1127-1333), as their dynasty was called,
made a new seat of government at Nanking.

The word for capital is " king," or first city ; Nan-
king means southern capital and Peking northern
capital. This Icing, pronounced Ido in Japanese, is
the Mo in Tokio and Kioto. The word nankeen,
or Chinese cloth, for summer wear, is only another
form of Nanking, where much of it was formerly
made.

Brave and skillful generals led the southerners
in the struggle, which was now for the rich pro-
vince of Honan, whose northern boundary is the
great, wide Yellow River. This, like the Rhine in
Roman days, was the dividing line between civ-
ilization and northern barbarism. The Tartars,
being from the desert and unaccustomed to navi-
gate or to fight on water, were unable to cross this
river, while many of the Chinese were adroit boat-
men and could fight on deck. Hence the river re-
mained a barrier against further invasion. Had

CHINA INVADED BY THE MONGOLS 149

the emperor possessed more courage, he might
have driven the Tartars out of China. The last
words of one of his generals were, "Cross the
river," meaning that the emperor should abandon
Nanking and advance northward.

The Tartars were able to make even more pro-
gress on their right wing. They passed into Shan-
tung, which means " the mountains east," and
devastated the rich country. On land these war-
riors in the saddle usually beat the Chinese, but
on water they were themselves badly handled.
Now these Kin Tartars were to find an enemy in
their rear also, that was to conquer them and then
advance to the conquest of the whole empire. At
these we shall glance.

Near the head waters of the Amoor Kiver, south-
east of Lake Baikal, lived a tribe of horsemen
whose ensign was an ox-tail. They called them-
selves Brave Men, or Mongols. Other tribes joined
their confederacy until, in 1135, filled with the
lust of conquest, they began fighting with the Kin
Tartars. Their chief, Kabul, assumed the title
Grand Khan. His banner was a cluster of ox-
tails.

About 1162 there was born the great hero
known in history as Genghis Khan. It is said that
when thirteen years old, at his mother's prompt-
ing, this son of Kabul became head of the Mon-
gols. Genghis means the Greatest of the Great.
He moved with a mighty host southward and be-

160 CHINA'S STORY

yond the Great "Wall, occupying several of the
northern provinces. In 1213 he despatched three
great expeditions eastward, all of which were suc-
cessful. The ox-tail banner was carried to the sea
near the modern Wei Hai Wei.

Some Japanese scholars claim that Yezukai, or
Genghis Khan, was no other than the Japanese
field-marshal and hero, Yoshitsun, whose name in
Chinese is Gengi K6, and who fled across the
Yezo Kai, or northern sea of Tartary. Some Chi-
nese authors also accept this plausible theory. In
1905 a Japanese officer found at Mukden the
reputed tomb of Yoshitsun.

When this great wave of humanity on horse-
back moved toward the setting sun and over the
Himalaya Mountains, it struck Russia during the
time of her feudal system. There was then no
national unity, but many semi-independent states
existed, nominally under a Czar, but almost always
at war with one another. At this time they were
much weakened in resources, "When the Musco-
vites set their hastily collected forces in battle
against the Mongols, their rout was rapid and
complete, and the Czar's empire was put under
tribute.

A Mongol, who lived in the saddle, horse and
man seeming like one animal, hated cities and
would have nothing to do with roofs or walls.
Coming out of the broad steppes and living con-
tinually in the open air, the horsemen felt as if

CHINA INVADED BY THE MONGOLS 151

they would be stifled within doors, and they feared
any and every high structure. So they leveled
to the ground the Russian towns and villages,
churches and farmhouses, making large areas of
the country a waste.

The son of Genghis Khan, named Ogotai, con-
tinued the work begun by his father. He com-
pletely subdued the Kin Tartars and ended their
dynasty of nine emperors, which had ruled half
of the Chinese Empire one hundred and eighteen
years. Then moving with a still larger army into
Europe, he penetrated to the very heart of the con-
tinent, destroying Moscow, Kief, and other Russian
cities, committing terrible atrocities and slaughter-
ing the inhabitants almost as numerously as the
Romans did our ancestors in Gaul and Germany.
The Mongols invaded Hungary and Poland, razing
Pesth, Cracow, and other cities to the ground, but
when in Silesia, hearing, in 1241, that Ogotai was
dead, the Mongol generals returned with their
hordes to the capital at Karakorum.

At the same time the Pope of Rome sent two
envoys, Carpini and Benedict, with a letter urging
upon Ogotai's successor more humanity in war, to
which the Mongol ruler civilly replied. Return-
ing, these two scholars brought to medieval Europe
the first knowledge of the Chinese as being a na-
tion more highly civilized than any at that time
existing in Europe. The ruins of the Mongol cap-
ital still litter the ground near the Orkhan River.

152 CHINA'S STORY

Meanwhile, in southern China, the Sung Em-
peror, in order to drive out the Kin Tartars, made
alliance with the Mongols. The allies succeeded,
but the old story of the badger inviting the por-
cupine into his hole was retold. After quarreling
over the spoils, the Chinese attempted again to
occupy the province of Honan, but the Mongols
ordered them out. The latter soon found what
kind of allies they had invited to aid them. When
Mangu became Khan in 1253, he and his brother
Kublai planned the complete conquest of China.
Kublai, who was elected Grand Khan on the
death of his brother, fixed his capital at or near
the modern Peking. About Cambulac, on the city
of the Khan, some of us have heard through the
poetry of Coleridge.

The Chinese were still defiant, but the Mongols,
being as ready to adopt modern improvements as
are the Japanese, employed foreign experts, teach-
ers, and advisers with new machinery and methods.
To the siege of cities they brought engines of war
made in Persia, which could throw stones and logs
of wood weighing over a hundred pounds. Using
these catapults, the General Bay an captured city
after city, until finally the ox-tail banners were
planted on the seashore below Canton. After fifty
years of battle and warfare, in which both the
courage and the tenacity of the Chinese were
conspicuous, the Mongol conquest of China was
completed and the Yuan, or Original, dynasty was

CHINA INVADED BY THE MONGOLS 153

founded. Like our barbarian ancestors, who de-
stroyed the Roman Empire and occupied its area,
the Mongol Tartars were now about to be power-
fully influenced by the civilization they had appar-
ently destroyed. Though Kublai was not actually
seated on the throne of China until 1260, the Yuan
dynasty is reckoned as lasting from A. D. 1206
to 1333.

There was yet much land to be occupied to the
east and south, so Kublai looked across the sea to
Japan. The Japanese sent back the envoys from
Kublai Khan with an answer of defiance. When
others came later, their heads were cut off. The
Koreans were quickly won over. Then, with a
combined fleet made up from the three peoples,
Mongols, Chinese, and Koreans, an attempt was
made to invade Japan.

When the Mongol armada, equipped with war-
machines and even cannon which the Italian Polos
had taught the Mongols to make, arrived off
Kiushiu, it was scattered by tempests. The Mon-
gol cavalry was repulsed on land by archery of
the Japanese. Then the latter, venturing out in
their little boats with swords and grappling-irons,
leaped on the big ships and fought the Mongols
hand to hand. As usual, the Tartars failed in bat-
tles on the water. The lives of the Koreans and
Chinese who surrendered were spared.

To this day in Japan the civil ruler and the cap-
tains who defeated the Mongols enjoy posthumous

154 CHINA'S STORY

honors. After the destruction of the [Russian ar-
mada, or Baltic fleet, by Admiral Togo in 1905,
very near the place where the Mongol armada
came to its end, the victors on land and sea, headed
by the Mikado, were present at a great celebra-
tion in honor of Hojo, the governor who roused
the nation to resist the invaders of A. D. 1281.

Something like the same lack of success befell
the Mongols when they invaded Ann am and at-
tempted Cambodia. They found that the work of
war in steaming bamboo jungles and teak forests,
or on the plains under the almost vertical rays of
the sun, was not so easy as fighting on the north-
ern plains and frozen rivers. They were so greatly
weakened by heat and sickness that they retired
from Cambodia and left Annam a semi-independent
state. All this region of peninsular Asia is popu-
larly known as Cochin China. It is interesting as
the original home of our barnyard fowls, the cock
and hen.

It was not necessarily the plan of the Mongol
Emperor to make war upon all nations, but those
near the frontiers, or even within reach, were
expected to pay tribute and acknowledge them-
selves vassals of the great Khan. If they did not,
they were invaded and subjugated. In the case of
Burma, after the first refusal, the usual invasion
was made. This time the Mongol veterans found
a new war animal. Elephants charged on them,
overwhelming both men and horses, while the

CHINA INVADED BY THE MONGOLS 155

Burmans discharged tlieir darts and arrows with
skill and effect. The Mongols were driven back
and their tactics made worthless. So they tried a
new plan by bringing forward their most skilled
archers, who aimed at the eyes, trunks, and other
tender parts of the big brutes. These, maddened
and unmanageable, carried confusion into the ranks
of the Burmans,. Then charging with their horse-
men, the Mongols won victory and Burma be-
came a vassal state.

Meanwhile the great empire kept expanding un-
til it was the largest in area and population known
in history, stretching as it did from the Black to
the Yellow Sea and from the steppes of Mongolia
to the Indian Ocean, within which space was a
vast variety of nations, tribes, and peoples.

CHAPTER XIV

WHAT THE MONGOLS DID FOR CHINA

IN 1294 the great Khan died, and the Japa-
nese proverb, u There is no seed to the great
general," was illustrated.

By her wonderful social system, China is able
to absorb all affluents, " salting all the water that
flows into it." Gradually the Mongols came under
the influence o Chinese civilization, with its com-
fort, luxury, and culture. Like other tribes, be-
fore and since, the Mongol invaders were ab-
sorbed in the Family of the Hundred Names.
As a distinct people, they disappeared in the
Chinese mass, like a lump of lead in the melting-
pot.

Kublai was succeeded in 1295 by Tamur. Now,
instead of exciting campaigns and thrilling news,
there seemed to come a succession of floods, fam-
ines, and earthquakes. Liao Tsze had taught that
full stomachs made government easy. Hunger
creates political trouble. The people, famine-
stricken, poor, and discontented, developed a re-
bellious spirit. In this era sprang up those patri-
otic secret societies which have ever since been so
numerous in China, inciting rebellion and stirring
up trouble. The White Lily Society is the most

TIGHT-ROPE WALKERS FROM MONGOLIA PROVIDE ENTERTAINMENT
FOR A STREET CROWD IN CENTRAL CHINA

WHAT THE MONGOLS DID FOE CHINA 157

famous, and that of the Boxers the most familiar
to us. Their objects are for the most part politi-
cal, and usually anti-dynastic. In this era they
were anti-Mongol. With the idea of " China for
the Chinese," they lived in hope of driving out
their conquerors and bringing in a native line of
rulers.

These secret societies soon became open bands
of rebels, in one of which was a patriotic priest, who
left the monastery to become a leader. He showed
rare qualities as a fighter and tactician, and under
his leadership Nanking was captured. The fall of
the Mongol dynasty was now certain.

In the north, not only were fresh tribes men-
acing the frontier and advancing on Peking, but
the Mongols themselves were quarreling over the
choice of an heir to the throne. It mattered little,
for when the rebels captured Kai Feng, the leader
pronounced himself emperor and gave the name
of Ming, or Bright, to the new dynasty now
founded. Peking was taken. The last Mongol
Emperor fled to his ancestral home in Mongolia.
The Yuan dynasty passed out of history.

It has been the general fashion among Euro-
pean writers to brand the Mongols as utterly
brutal savages, before whose advent civilization
melted away, and the land became a desert. No
adjective seems sufficiently black for them. Even
Japanese authors mourn that the Mongols rav-
aged the Buddha-garden and destroyed the spirit-

158 CHINA'S STOEY

ual unity of Asia. It is evident that nearly all
Western people get their notions about the Mon-
gols not wholly from true history, but rather from
folk-lore, romances, and fairy-tales, the nightmare
fears of the Middle Ages, and the fantastic legends
of the monks. Yet a similar process of descrip-
tion would lower our estimate of other races, who
are highly praised, but who, like Assyrians, Ko-
mans, Chinese, British, Russians, and Americans,
have nearly annihilated native tribes and shed
seas of blood. Compared with other conquerors,
from the dawn of history to this century, Genghis
need not be wholly ashamed. In justice, we must
turn to inquire what and who the Mongols were,
and what results followed their conquest of China
and part of Europe.

We have a wonderful picture of Cathay, or
of Mongolian China, in Marco Polo's book. With
his uncles he traveled and traded in Kublai's
empire, and held office under the great Khan
during many years. He told Europe about Japan,
giving information which Columbus sought to
verify, for he sailed westward over the Sea of
Darkness, with the idea of finding, not America,
of which he knew nothing, but Nippon and
Cathay.

Polo's writings touched the imagination of
Europe, helping mightily to stimulate discovery
and to unveil the continent of America. For over
a century after Columbus, navigators sailed west-

WHAT THE MONGOLS DID FOR CHINA 159

ward to find China, or sought a passage north of
America or east of Spitzbergen. While the coast-
line of our continent was not yet unveiled, savage
America was associated only with fish, furs, gold,
or things curious. It was considered rather as an
obstacle in the quest for China, which Captain
John Smith, Henry Hudson, and many others
were bent on finding. Only gradually was Amer-
ica known as a continent which in itself was a
source of wealth.

From Marco Polo, who traveled from Venice to
China and lived nearly twenty years in the em-
pire, we learn of the high state of prosperity to
which China attained under the Mongols, and
what broad and liberal ideas the conquerors pos-
sessed and welcomed. Starting as savages, they
quickly responded to the ideas of civilization.
They had a postal system from one end of the
empire to the other, with good roads and protec-
tion to the traveler. Trade and industry flourished
to an extent unknown before. Toleration was
shown to all sects. Complete religious liberty was
given the followers of Buddha, Jesus, and Maho-
met, and to the Jews, but the superstitious and
magical practices of the Taoists were put under
ban and their books, except the original writings
of Lao-Tsze, were ordered to be burned. The
Chinese, with their social system thus renovated
and enlarged, became almost reconciled to the
rule of foreigners.

160 CHINA'S STORY

The Mongol invasion of Europe was not wholly
an evil. It hindered the spread of Mahometan-
ism in eastern Asia. It allowed the Christian
missionaries to come into Mongolia, where they
were for a while so successful that afterwards,
when the Turks closed the roads into Asia, thus
hindering caravans and traffic, there grew up the
legend of a renowned Far Eastern Prester John,
who long had the fame of a great church prince.
There are "lost" Christian nations in the same
sense as there are " lost " tribes of Israel.

The Mongols opened new lines of traffic.
Through the freedom of the roads, many valuable
discoveries of the Chinese were carried westward,
giving half -civilized Europe the rich fruits of
Oriental civilization. Our debt to China is vast.
Among other things came printing, gunpowder,
the mariner's compass, paper money, wall paper,
silk, tea, porcelain, banks, etc.

Marco Polo, who in 1295 A. D., while in prison,
wrote his book on China the first in Europe
was laughed at as a romancer, but he told the
truth as he saw it, as we now know. Probably no
medieval nation in Europe, before 1300 A. D., was
on the whole as highly civilized as China. The old
text found new application, that our composite
Western civilization is but a revised and corrected
edition of other civilizations. The Orientals excel
at originating, and the Westerners at developing
and adapting. Each is debtor to the other.

WHAT THE MONGOLS DID FOR CHINA 161

This subject deserves further study, but it is
manifest that the Mongols were not wholly a curse
to the world, and that the progress of the race was
hastened by bringing together the nations at oppo-
site ends of the earth's greatest island, the Eur-
asian continent.

The Mongols in India, called Moguls, descend-
ants of Tamerlane, produced, in the sixteenth cen-
tury, one of the most liberal lines of rulers known
in history. Under them there arose a brilliant
civilization. Men of genius from both China and
Europe were invited, like the yatoi, whom the
Japanese from 1870 to 1900 employed to recon-
struct their civilization, to lend their aid and tal-
ents in making the Mogul Empire lovely as well
as strong. Some of the fairest works of art and
architecture known on earth, such as the Taj
Mahal and Kutub Minar, have arisen from the
blending of the Italian, the Mongol, and the Hin-
doo genius. In every country the Mongols showed
a talent for absorbing what was good and noble in
the civilization amid which they dwelt. What the
Tartar genius is capable of, when fused with that
of other races, is clearly discerned in China, Japan,
and Korea, by all who have openness of mind to
see. The later Tartars, or Manchus, became "the
most improvable race in Asia."

In Russia the contact of the Mongols had cer-
tain striking results still visible in the Czar's do-
minions. Ordinary horses would have died during

162 CHINA'S STORY

the long winter, which in the Russian vernacular
is first green, then white, then black ; during which
the ground is wholly covered, and food for ordi-
nary cattle is provided only by the forethought of
man. The Mongol ponies, with their long snouts,
were able to dig into the snow, throw it up, and
find and feed upon the buried grass and plenti-
ful moss. The Mongols conquered by their better
arms, discipline, and tactics. They secured a foot-
hold which enabled them to remain in Russia two
centuries. Indeed, they were not wholly driven out
until about the time of Peter the Great. The long
dwelling of these Orientals in Russia has left its
mark upon the faces and forms of the Russians,
many of whom, in that conglomerate empire, are
more Mongolian, or Tartar, than are many of the
Japanese, who have in them a powerful strain
of true Aryan and Semitic blood.

Not least of the Mongols' gifts to China was
the stimulus and fertilization of the native intellect
in the domain of the imagination. The great lit-
erary achievements are to be credited to them, the
drama and the novel. Previously the court had
songs, music, and acting, besides the blending of
the two in the opera. Indeed, in A. I>. 713, one of
the Han emperors established the Imperial Dra-
matic College, as it may be called, in which hun-
dreds of male and female performers were trained
to amuse him with their music and acting. These
were called Young Folks of the Pear Garden, by

WHAT THE MONGOLS DIB FOE CHINA 163

'which name Chinese actors call themselves to this
day.

Nearly all dramatic pieces were at first reli-
gious. Development was made during the Middle
Ages, but there was no real theatre or full dramatic
performance until the Mongol era. Then the plays
were worked up by the Chinese from their own
history and social life. Some, in origin, were from
"Western players and musicians at the Mongol
court. Then, from the court to the people came
the dramas and plays illustrating life. Tragedy,
melodrama, and comedy, as acted on the stage, are
now common in China. These had been long known
among the Mongols and were introduced by them,
the Chinese theatre of to-day having changed
little from the days of Kublai. Now there are
theatres and strolling players all over China. In
most of the villages the theatre and stage are put
up with bamboo and matting by expert artificers.
After the play, which lasts two or three days, the
temporary structure is removed.

Whether the Mongols brought the romance from
that paradise of the story-tellers, in central Asia,
where grew up from the soil of Persia, India, and
Arabia the so-called Arabian Nights' Entertain-
ments, or whether they invented it in China, the
credit of the Chinese novel belongs to the Yuan
era. Before this time there were only fables, an-
ecdotes, short stories, and the lore that Buddhism
supplied. Whether the novel was developed out

1C CHINA'S STORY

of the drama, or from the Buddhist mystery and
morality plays and pageants, cannot yet be said.
There is a vast storehouse of fiction, but only a
few Chinese novels have been translated. In four-
fold division, they deal vrith usurpation or plots ;
love and intrigue ; superstition, local legend, myth-
ical zoology, etc. ; or with lawless characters ; ex-
actly as in American cheap fiction.

In the voluminous folk-lore of China one soon
learns to detect the elements, Taoist, Buddhist,
primitive, or medieval, and to recognize the sym-
bols, characters, and course of the story. Confu-
cianism, Taoism, and Buddhism are three separate
worlds of ideas, differing one from another as do
air, earth, and water; birds, beasts, and fishes.

At home, in China, Mongol supremacy was at
first the rule of cow-boys in the cities. Yet while
the men who governed moved around more freely
on horseback, carrying messages and transacting
public business with a celerity that startled the
staid natives, the Chinese women retreated still
further into privacy and security. It is often sup-
posed in Europe that the custom of foot-binding
arose because husbands wished to keep their wives
at home and to prevent them from gadding about.
On the contrary, as in our own country, it was
the decree of fashion that led women to make
martyrs of themselves in order to have small and
pretty feet. Chinese girls suffered years of pain
and even agony in order to turn one of the most

WHAT THE MONGOLS DID FOR CHINA 165

beautiful things in nature the human foot into
a hoof, or something that custom calls beautiful
when within an embroidered slipper. Such extrem-
ities might be attractive if belonging to sheep or
gazelles.

Chinese writers say that a paragon of female
beauty in the person of Yao Niang, the lovely
concubine of the last of the Southern line of
Tang emperors, began the practice. According to
poetical tradition, her feet were pinched and
" cramped into the semblance of the new moon."
Such an example set at court was soon followed,
and became so general that it will require genera-
tions of argument and disapproval to break up
the custom.

Undoubtedly the rough manners of the Mongols
drove Chinese women into stricter privacy, and
helped to immure women. Centuries of Confucian-
ism, foot-binding, and abominable customs con-
tributed to make it an ordeal for decent women
to appear freely on the streets of a Chinese city,
encouraging also female slavery and the multipli-
cation of the wrong kind of women, to the detri-
ment of public morals.

Deeper notes were struck in the Chinese con-
sciousness, and imagination was kindled by the
clash of alien with native humanity. Certainly
from this era literature is infused with a new
spirit and takes on more fascinating forms. The
sublimity of thought and boldness of imagery

166 CELESTA'S STORY

stimulated may be best set forth, to the
mind by the following 1 poem :

** See the five variegated peaks of yon mountain, connected

like the fingers of the hand,

And rising up from the south, as a wall midway to heaven :
At night, it would pluck, from the inverted concave, the

stars of the Milky Way ;
Daring the day, it explores the zenith and plays with the

clouds.

The rain has ceased and the shining summits are ap-
parent in the void expanse;
The moon is up and looks like a bright pearl over the

expanded palm ;
One might imagine that the Great Spirit had stretched

forth an arm
3Trom afar from beyond the sea and was numbering

the Nations."

CHAPTEE XV

THE MLNG EMPERORS

THE Chinese have more patriotism than the
foreigner is apt to suppose. In 1368 all true-born
Chinese rejoiced in the advent of a native dynasty.
Happily the new ruler showed the traits of a good
priest and a true shepherd of the flock, as well
as those of a firm general. While his captains re-
strained the Tartars in the north, he gave himself
to the work of reducing taxes, cutting down the
public expenses, and opening friendly relations
with Korea and Japan. In every way he showed
himself a wise ruler. Yet the empire was not free
from usurpations and rebellions, and the Tartars
were still making inroads at various points on the
northern frontier, which was too extended to be
easily protected. In one raid they captured the
Chinese Emperor, who had to be ransomed.

Literature was not forgotten. The great ency-
clopedia, completed in 1407, in 22,877 volumes, is
a unique literary monument of the Ming era. An-
other enterprise was the collecting, editing, revis-
ing, and publication of the classical canon of scrip-
ture and the works of the schoolmen of the Sung
era. The barbarous custom of putting slaves and
concubines to death when an emperor died was

168 CHINA'S STOKY

abolished forever in China, Before 1465, even the
most loved wives were buried alive in the imperial
coffin. A via sacra, or glorious avenue of colossal
stone sculpture -figures of migbty men, camels,
horses, animals used in sacrifice, with pillars, obe-
lisks, monoliths, marble bridges, and monumental
gateways, was reared near Peking. Enshrined in
solemn beauty in the bosom of the hills are the
Thirteen Tombs, as the Chinese call them, en-
circled with cypress trees. The Ming memorial
arch is the finest in the empire. The entrance is
named "Rest the Spirit." All manner of beautiful
woods, marbles, and tiles are used in the ancestral
hall and shrines. One tablet is inscribed " The
Tomb of the Perfect Ancestor and Literary Em-
peror." The procession of these stone figures and
the tombs and shrines form one of the most beau-
tiful places in all China. Japan quickly followed
the good examples set her by China during the
Ming era, in memorial architecture. This was the
age of the tiled pagoda. When first built in China,
these tall structures were heavy and stumpy, like
the India tope or dagoba. The Chinese devel-
oped them into slender, graceful, and lofty struc-
tures, on the model of the ever beautiful bamboo,
famous for its delicacy and strength, often hang-
ing wind-bells at the end of their curves, making
music in the air.

The canal between Peking and the Peiho River
was so enlarged and deepened that ships could

THE MING EMPEROES 169

reach the capital from the Yang-tse River by
way of the Grand Canal. The Great "Wall was
repaired and business encouraged, so that the
nation became very piosperous. It is believed
that the population of China proper rose to sixty
millions.

The glory of the dynasty culminated at the
opening of the sixteenth century, when public
works on a colossal scale were carried out. Nan-
king, the capital, became so famous that in dis-
tant lands a Chinese was known as a "Nanking-
man." I was so called by the children of interior
Japan, in 1871. Strangers were supposed to be
either Chinese, that is, " Eastern men" (to-jin), or
Nankingmen. Or they were called Holland men,
or Outlanders.

One important event was a war with Japan,
though the battlefield was Korea. Between the
Japanese and Chinese no love has ever been lost.
The earliest men in Nippon knew nothing about
China, but the medieval Japanese had a great
feeling of reverence and gratitude for this Trea-
sure Land of the West from which they received
writing, literature, costume, etiquette, medicine,
and science, and a "book religion," Buddhism.
It was by China's aid that they were able to rise
from barbarism to be a civilized nation. Yet
the Mikado's subjects could never brook the idea
of the Chinese looking down upon them. They
called their emperor also the " Son of Heaven,' 5

170 CHINA'S STORY

and theirs the " Country governed by a Heaven-
descended line of rulers." They used exactly the
same words and phrases about their ilikado as
the Chinese did about their Emperor, speaking
of the Dragon's Face, the Dragon's Seat, the
Dragon's Chariot, and of their nobles as the Clouds
(of Heaven), etc. Just as in Europe our medieval
barbarian fathers imitated the Roman Empire and
emperor, and their kings and emperors called
themselves Caesar, Kaiser, Czar ; or in republics
used the letters S. P. Q. (Senate and People), and
later founded the Holy Roman Empire, inheriting
Roman law, custom, and rhetorical expressions, so
the Japanese imitated China in a thousand ways.
But between China and Japan, and Rome and
the northern nations, there was this difference.
The Roman Empire was dead, but the Chinese
Empire was very much alive; and the Chinese
considered the Japanese vassals or at least pupils,
which the latter never acknowledged and ever
bitterly scouted and resisted. As there could not
be two suns in the same sky, Japan considered
China as bigoted and conceited. China returned
the compliment by looking on Japan as an impu-
dent upstart. The Chinese often used, even as
late as 1894, the ancient term of contempt, Wo-
jin, or dwarfs, which is very insulting; as in the
proclamation of the Empress of China when she
called on her soldiers "to root the Wo-jin out of
their lairs."

THE MING EMPERORS 171

The invasion of Kublai Khan, in which the
Chinese and Koreans assisted, incensed the Jap-
anese, who, when refused trading privileges, be-
gan a career of piracy and privateering. They
captured towns and cities and carried off slaves,
prisoners, and spoils. They were fully as cruel as
our Norman ancestors. The Chinese along the
coast besought their gods to deliver them from
the wrath of the murderous Japanese, even as
our forefathers prayed in their litanies, "from
the fury of the Northmen " (that is, the ancestors
of the Danes, Norwegians, and Swedes of to-
day), "good Lord, deliver us."

Chinese armies were sent to defend the coast,
and the pirates from Nippon became less trouble-
some. Hideyoshi, the regent, having at home a
large military force consisting of the retainers of
the daimios, whom he had subdued in the name of
the Mikado, thus unifying Japan, but whose blades
were restless in their scabbards, planned to con-
quer Korea first and then invade China He
claimed that the Ming Emperor had insulted him
by offering to make him King of Japan, on con-
dition of Japan's becoming a confessed vassal to
China. Having been defied by the Koreans, he
sent two divisions of his army to invade their
country, one under Konishi the Christian and the
other under Kato the Buddhist. In eighteen days
from landing, the rival divisions entered at oppo-
site gates of Seoul.

172 CHINA'S STORY

Hideyoshf s reinforcements were checked by a
large Chinese army marching into northern Korea.
A great battle was fought at Ping Yang, exactly
where, in 1904, the soldiers of the two nations met
in conflict again. The Japanese were beaten, and
with " hearts cold in their bosoms " they retreated.
In the southwestern waters, the Japanese plans
were utterly ruined by the Korean Admiral Yu,
with his famous iron-clad, or turtle ship, which
rammed, fired, sunk, or scattered the Japanese
ships.

There were many battles and sieges in Korea
at places where now are cities, railway stations,
or telegraph offices. At length, in 1598, on the
death of Hideyoshi, who meanwhile had become
the Taiko, or ex-regent, peace was arranged and
the armies were called home. A trading-station
at Fusan, across the sea from Nagasaki, was kept
by the Japanese.

The Chinese change their dynasty every two or
three centuries, and the Mings, like most of those
who have ruled China, were not destined to a long
career. One of the longest reigns was that of
Wan Li, who ruled from 1573 to 1620, during
which great events in connection with Japan and
Europe took place.

The reason for these short-lived dynasties in the
long-lived empire is very plain. In the long Chi-
nese story, the people are the real hero. The na-
tion is the tree, the dynasties are but the leaves.

THE MING EMFEROKS 173

The latter, unless China's constitution is radically
reformed, are bound to fall. The duration of a
ruling house is brief, the life of the people is eter-
nal. National government and responsibility must
be shared with the people, if the empire is to live.

A cloud of destiny, at first no bigger than a
man's hand, rose in the northeast. A Tartar clan
named the Manchu, or Pure, dwelling in the dis*
trict about thirty miles east of Mukden, united
the other clans with them into a confederacy. The
Chinese Emperor championed the cause of a chief-
tain hostile to the Manchus. It was a mistake.
Forty thousand Manchus invaded Liao-tung and
their leader read before the whole army a declara-
tion of war against China. The paper was sol-
emnly burnt and the smoke arose as a prayer to
Heaven. The Chinese made their second mistake
in dividing their army into four divisions, each of
which was defeated in succession by the Manchus.

As soon as men or nations have become great
or famous, they want a genealogy or family his-
tory showing illustrious origins. Fashion requires
it and it impresses the vulgar. If facts or proof
fail, literary men make up, with the aid of fables
or mythology, that story of their ancestors which
suits the taste of the age. The Japanese and Ko-
reans borrowed this habit from the Chinese. As
nothing is exactly known of the origin of the Man-
chus in the desert, where there was no writing, a
pretty fairy-tale far more delicious to the pal-

174 CHINA'S STORY

ate of imagination is told in place of history. It
is this.

Ages ago, under the northern shadow of the
Ever White Mountains that divide Korea from
Manchuria, three virgins from Heaven descended
to the shore of a lake, which reflected on its bosom
the azure of the skies and the majestic forms of
the snowy peaks. By day they enjoyed the rose
tints of the morn on the ripples raised by breezes,
and at noon they rejoiced in the golden sunlight.
They found rapture in the glories of the sunset
and clapped their hands with delight when they saw
the mirror of the lake spangled with star jewels.
Thus they lived on earth's fairest portion, nor ever
longed for their home in the skies.

One day the three sisters were bathing in the
crystal waters, having left their robes on the peb-
bly beach, when they saw a magpie flying in the
air. Pausing for a moment over the youngest of
the virgins, the bird dropped a blood-red fruit.
As the magpie was sacred in their eyes, this was
a happy omen. The maiden at once ate the fruit
as a message from Heaven.

By this divine token, the virgin conceived and
in due time bore a son whom she called the Golden
Family Stem. This name, in Manchu, Ai-sin-Goro,
is the family name of the emperors of China.
Both the Chinese and Manchu words for the dy-
nasty, meaning bright or clear, have reference to
the splendor of water on which the sun shines.

THE MING EMPERORS 175

The mother told her son that he was Heaven-born.
She taught him that his destiny was to heal quarrels
among men and bring peace and prosperity to the
nations.

The boy grew up under the mountain shadow
and by the lakeside. In due time his mother en-
tered the icy caves of the dead. Then the lad
started out into the world on his own career. In
a little boat he paddled down the river Hurka
(near Ninguta), which flows into the Sungari,
reaching a place where dwelt three clans then at
war with one another. Impressed by his appearance,
they hailed him as their chief, and, uniting their
fortunes, they made a settlement at Otoli, and he
ruled over them. In one of the later wars, he and
all his sons were slain except one who escaped.
The murderers chased Fancha, as he was called,
but when a magpie alighted on his head, the
youth stood still as a post, and turned his back on
his pursuers as they rushed through the forest ;
they took him for a piece of dried wood, and pass-
ing him , gave up the hunt. The magpie has ever
been a sacred bird with the Manchus.

The mark of nationality among these north-
eastern Tartars was the queue. They shaved the
whole front part of the scalp and then let their
hair grow behind into a long tail. A young Manchu
warrior was as proud of his tail of hair as a Mo-
hawk or Pawnee Indian was of his scalp-lock.

Before this time, the Chinese wore their hair as

176 CHINA'S STORY

the Koreans do, that is, done up in a sort of knot
or chignon at the back of the head. Thus it hap-
pens that Chinese, on first coming to Korea, are
amused at seeing the fashion of topknots prevalent,
just as it was among their ancestors of the Ming
period. If short by nature, the queue was length-
ened out, by means of black silk or false hair, so
as to reach below the knees. In China this queue
became the solemn mark of loyalty to the Manchu
sovereign. Millions of natives were slaughtered be-
fore they would submit their heads to the razor.
Although Chinese males wash their own clothes,
being laundry-men by habit, they do not shave
themselves, but pay for their tonsure. To the
Manchus the barbers of China are very grateful-

Until our twentieth century, in China, not to
wear the queue, or to cut it off, was a sign of dis-
loyalty to the emperor. Some of the anti- dynastic
secret societies showed their enmity to the Peking
rulers by secretly snipping off the queues of prom-
inent citizens, or men high in office, thus bring-
ing disgrace and shame upon them.

Nevertheless the Chinese were not peculiar in
priding themselves on their hair tails, for it was
the fashion with Europeans and Americans in the
eighteenth century to wear them. Most of the
Continental soldiers and sailors in the Eevolution
had pigtails which they larded, powdered, or wore
in eelskins, looking just as funny as do the Chinese.
In every country in the world there is a language

THE MING EMPERORS 177

o hair. The fashions of hair and head-gear serve
as signs of nationality, sex, marital promise or con-
dition. The Japanese, however, cut off their top-
knots in 1870, the Koreans two decades later, and
the Chinese are now slowly following the example
of the world at large. In China, whether with or
without hair tails, the men follow a uniform fash-
ion, but there is an amazing variety among the
women in arranging their tresses.

When the Manchus appeared before the oft-
besieged and many times captured city of Liao-
yang, the people submitted to their new masters,
giving signs of their sincerity by shaving the front
part of their scalps and waiting for their queues
to grow.

The Manchus tried to take the city of Ning
Yuan, north of the Great Wall, but now they had
to face gunpowder and cannon-balls. The Jesuit
Europeans, being men of science, had taught the
Ming men how to cast cannon, and the Chinese
had also bought artillery from the Portuguese at
Macao. Under the training of the missionaries,
they made and served their heavy guns so effec-
tively that the Manchus had to withdraw. They
established their capital at Mukden, where are
to-day the imposing mausoleums of the Manchu
dynasty. In 1629 they marched into Korea, and
securing the king's submission, advanced into
China at the head of a hundred thousand men to
besiege Peking. The Chinese were reinforced and

178 CHINA'S STORY

the Manehus retreated, so the empire was still safe
for a while.

The torment of China is the frequency of in-
surrections. One of these broke out in the central
region, which was so successful that after captur-
ing many cities, Li, the chief rebel, declared
himself emperor and moved on to Peking. The
Chinese sovereign, taken by surprise, went up on
Coal Hill, north of the imperial palace, and seeing
the great rebel host, ended his life by suicide. Yet
Ld's triumph was short. The Chinese commander
in the north made an alliance with the Manchus,
and a great battle was fought near the eastern
end of the Great Wall, in which the allies won
and the army of the rebels was scattered. The
Manchu chief Durgan entered Peking and placed
his nephew, a child eight years of age, on the
throne. Thus in 1644, amid rebellion and blood-
shed, the Ming dynasty came to an end.

The Great Wall was now no longer needed, for
the Tartars were inside China proper to stay
and to become Chinese. In spite of the romantic
attempt of Koxinga to hold Formosa for the
Mings, the dynasty was defunct beyond all hope
of resurrection. For us the Mings survive ever in
memory, chiefly through the exquisite porcelain
and other art works of their brilliant era.

CHAPTER XVI

THE MASTCHUS A3STD EUROPEANS

FROM the moment that the men of the desert
entered China, and, from living on the backs of
horses and among cattle, slept in houses and lived
like civilized people, they began to lose their lan-
guage and for the most part their peculiar customs,
and rapidly to become Chinese.

It is the China of the Ming and Manchu dy-
nasties that our European ancestors first saw and
described, and with which the books written and
read during the last three hundred years have
made us familiar. The notions and ideas of the
average man of to-day, who does not study, is of
this China, now already in large part obsolete.
Most of the pictures which have impressed us as
children, beyond the power of any printed matter
or writing, and the curiosities in the museums are
from Ming days. It is the China from which our
fathers first obtained porcelain, lacquer, ivory,
and crystal work, matting, drugs, tea, spices, fire-
crackers, nankeen, crape, silk, and odd things
bearing the odors of the East. China is above all
others the land of odors, sweet, mysterious,
pleasant, and otherwise.

The Portuguese, first to round the Cape of Good

180 CHINA'S STORY

Hope, were the European pioneers in China. Two
small fleets of these " Southern Barbarians " came
to Canton in 1511. They were well treated. A re-
vulsion of Chinese feeling followed after the com-
mander of the third fleet had committed brutal
outrages along the coast. He was seized and be-
headed and his men massacred at Ningpo. The
survivors fled to Macao, where they were allowed
to settle. Until within recent years, Macao was
virtually a Portuguese possession, and with Canton
was one of the two chief foreign seaports of China.
Here, in exile, Camoens wrote his poem, the
" Lusiad," which celebrates the achievements of
Portuguese explorers in the Orient.

The Spaniards followed, settling in the Philip-
pine Islands. At Manila, where the population
was chiefly Chinese, they treated the people with
cruelty, and suspecting them of complicity in a
plot, massacred thousands of them. After such
treatment of their countrymen, the Chinese were
not inclined to receive human beings from Europe
very hospitably. For centuries the " foreign dev-
ils," so called in China, were believed to be so
because of what the people heard about them.

The Dutch pioneers in the Far East, the Hout-
man brothers, having obtained charts of the seas,
sailed from the Texel in 1595. By 1622, after
failing to establish a factory in Canton, the Dutch
secured a foothold in the Pescadores. When
driven out from these islands, they made a strong

THE MANCHUS AND EUROPEANS 181

settlement at Tai-wan, In Formosa, built a fort,
laid out a town, and began the conversion of the
natives. They led all Protestant nations in estab-
lishing the first foreign missions on a large scale.
Over a score of ordained ministers and many
teachers instructed hundreds of converts and trans-
lated the creeds and the gospels into Formosan.
They met with great success until conquered by
Koxinga. Such an impression was made on the
people that, after three centuries, the first natives
ordained to office in the churches, in our days,
were descendants of the converts of the seventeenth
century. Formosa, hitherto virtually unknown or
ignored by China, was colonized by Chinese from
Fukien province by Koxinga and his father, the
latter having married a wife from the Japanese,
then numerous in the island.

The Ming dynasty was in power when the great
missionary Francis Xavier, after laboring in India
and Japan, came to China. He lived on the island
which he named Saint John, now corrupted into
San Ciano, near Macao, where he died in 1552.
To this day, the Portuguese make annual pilgrim-
ages to his grave. His two successors, Roger and
Bicci, settled in Kwantung in 1582, and under the
Emperor Wan Li reached Peking. Eicci was
highly honored at court, and being a man of sci-
ence, gave the Chinese the benefit of his know-
ledge of astronomy and mechanics. He translated
Euclid and helped to correct the Chinese calendar,

182 CHINA'S STORY

besides assisting in making and using improved
war weapons. Some of these astronomical instru-
ments, their supports being cast in bronze in the
form of dragons and other mythical creatures,
found in Peking, were removed to Germany after
the Boxer riots, as part of the loot taken by Chris-
tian armies to Europe,

What were the first impressions and real feel-
ings of the Chinese toward Europeans ? We are
apt to suppose that these Asian people must of
necessity consider us handsome and our ways plea-
sant. Yet in truth what we think of them and what
they think of us is well balanced. Our faces seem
often pale and ghost-like. Our deep-set eyes have
to them an uncanny, far-apart look. Our high,
large noses frighten their children. Our hair,
of various tints, shades, and colors, instead of
standard black, makes anything but a pleasing im-
pression at first. The odor of our bodies, whether
we are emperors and empresses, or day laborers,
being that of meat-eating people, is not pleasant
to these rice-eaters. Our drinking of liquor from
large glasses, and our use of cooked flesh, not in
scraps but in quantities, besides many forms of
our table manners and general etiquette, the dress,
public relations, and common ideas concerning
the sexes, are in their eyes decidedly below par.
They consider departure from inherited tradition
outlandish, improper, wrong, wicked, devilish,
according to the culture, experience, or reason

THE MANCHUS AND EUROPEANS 183

possessed by the person judging. In every land,
however, gentlemen are gentlemen and ladies are
ladies, and they soon discover one another. Prob-
ably Moses, Confucius, and St. Paul could dine
together comfortably and enjoy an interview. Cer-
tainly many Chinese are noble exemplars of loyalty,
gratitude, and friendship ; not afc all the " treach-
erous " people so often caricatured in America.

While people in the northern part of China
submitted and shaved their heads in token o
obedience to the new rulers, the southerners at-
tempted to keep up the Ming dynasty. Several
emperors under this name held power for a short
time. The national feeling toward the Ming, or any
other dynasty, is accurately expressed in the motto
of a patriot who refused to cut the dikes and flood
the country, because it would hurt the Chinese
more than the Manchus, " First the people and
next the dynasty." As the Tartar soldiers moved
south, capturing city after city, they compelled the
beaten folk to apply the razor to their scalps,
making a harvest for the barbers. The career of
victory of the Peking troops did not end until they
were at the borders of Burma.

In general, the policy of the Manchus was one
of conciliation. China was the fat goose that laid
golden eggs, and these new politicians were not in
a hurry to ruin their prize. A grand council was
organized, consisting of four members, two Man-
chus and two Chinese. These four men, having

184: CHINA'S STOKY

audience of the sovereign, outranked the members
of the Six Boards and of the Board of Censors*
By thus giving equal representation to both races,
the conquerors gradually removed most of the
hatred with which they were at first regarded.
The garrisons and military officers were Manchu,
but most of the civil offices were held by Chinese.

This fact explains one great difference between
the Japanese and their Continental neighbors. In
China there has always been a great gulf fixed
between the soldier and the civilian. The idea of
Chinese statesmen has always been to govern
through moral agencies rather than by physical
force. War is considered a rude and abominable
business, fit only for men of low degree. Hence
the soldier is despised and the scholar is honored*
The man of war was especially hated when a
Manchu,

In Japan, on the contrary, the soldier and the
scholar have been one. The accomplishments of
the pen and the sword were united in the samurai,
or servant of the emperor, who incarnated the his-
tory of Japan. Under feudalism, the merchant,
long honored in China, was despised in Japan. In
facing the new age of economics under pressure of
hostile nations, China has to some extent bowed
to the gods of modern warfare, yet the sporadic
campaigns of the war lords seem mere gestures in
comparison with Japan's relentless national cam-
paigns.

THE MANCHUS AND EUROPEANS 185

When the great emperor Kang Hi, eight years
of age, began in A, B. 1662 his reign of sixty-one
years, the country entered upon a career of pros-
perity and splendor. Two embassies from Europe
came to Peking in 1664, but when the new rulers
insisted upon the kow-tow, or nine prostrations,
the Eussians, who had come overland through
Siberia, refused and returned. The Dutch yielded
for the sake of trade, but gained little thereby.
Adam Schall, a Jesuit missionary, was for a time
the tutor of the young emperor, but on a false
charge was thrown into prison. The emperor
showed favor to the Jesuits, while Father Ver-
biest, a Dutch priest, succeeded as tutor to the
emperor and corrected errors in the calendar.

Chinese and Japanese, when jealous, are as
bitter and unrelenting in punishing rivals as are
Europeans. The tragedies of the Tower of Lon-
don and of the graves in the Chapel of St. Peter
in Chains have their counterparts in the East.
The court officers were not at all thankful to the
Dutchman, despite his thirty years of honorable
service. They persecuted him for his truth-tell-
ing, which is no more liked in Japan or China
than in Europe when it is disagreeable. They
were especially sensitive, since the calendar is the
sign of Chinese infallibility, and when accepted
by pupil nations is a sign of vassalage. The
mandarins had Verbiest condemned to be sliced
into a thousand pieces, but the order was not exe-

186 CHINA'S STORY

cuted, and he died with a whole skin in prison at
the age of seventy-eight. Regis and others eon-
ducted a survey of the empire, then the most com-
plete geographical work ever done out of Europe.
When it was published the learned men in the
West obtained clear ideas about China's greatness.
As usual, the southern Chinese, who in mind
and habit differ notably from their countrymen
in the north, were in rebellion, one of the rebels
even threatening to come to Peking, but he was
subdued. Knowing how weak they were on the
water, the Manchus sent an overwhelming force
to make Formosa a part of the empire. Three
hundred ships with twelve thousand men were
sent to conquer and occupy the island, but they
won only the western half. With this success
and exception, the great Kang Hi's reign was
undisputed. He was a generous patron of litera-
ture. The superb standard dictionary and ency-
clopaedia of 5026 volumes were compiled under
his direction, and published. Kang Hi also wrote
out himself sixteen famous moral maxims. These,
expanded and annotated by his sou, formed the
book called the Sacred Edict, which ever since
has been read and expounded throughout the em-
pire ; indeed, it is supposed to be read in every
town and village on the first and fifteenth days
of the month. When properly carried out, the
exercises are much like those in a church on Sun-
day in a Christian land.

THE MANCHUS AND EUROPEANS 187

In religious matters the Roman Catholic mis-
sionaries enjoyed imperial favor, built one hun-
dred churches, and enrolled one hundred thousand
converts, but trouble arose within. The different
orders in the Catholic Church disputed concern-
ing the term to be used for God. When they ap-
pealed to a ruler in Italy to settle the question,
the Chinese Emperor could not understand such a
procedure, and took alarm. The Jesuits approved
of the worship of ancestors, but the Dominicans
and Franciscans opposed the cult. The Pope
condemned ancestor-worship, which still further
angered the emperor. From Italy also came the
command to use the term Heavenly Lord (Tien
Chiu) instead of the term for Heaven (Tien), or
the Dweller in Heaven (Shang Ti). When it was
realized at Peking that there was an empire
within an empire, the emperor was furious, and
issued an edict which greatly restricted the work
of the missionaries. Had the ancient cult of an-
cestor-homage been winked at, vast success might
have been won, and in time this method of honor-
ing the family, founded on forty centuries of har-
mony, might have been as easily reconciled to
Christianity as are some of those notions, still
prevalent in Christian churches, of which Jesus
knew nothing.

Despite outward conformity, the Chinese in
many ways clung to their old customs, as agaiast
the novelties introduced by their conquerors.

188 CHINA'S STORY

Chinese women still held to their foot-binding,
while the Manchu females, with natural feet, were
free to walk. ** The men submitted, the women
never; the living yielded, the dead not at all,"
became a proverb. "Pigtail and 'lily* feet" ex-
pressed the situation. The style of dress ordered
by their rulers in Peking was worn, but the dead
are always robed in the old Chinese manner. Thus
the natives cherished their liberties, the women
being, as ever, the social conservatives.

CHAPTER XVII

EAST AND WEST IN CONFLICT

WHEN the commercial mission sent by Peter
the Great reached Peking, in 1723, the mighty
emperor Kang Hi lay on his deathbed. The Czar
had planned to open commerce and thus turn the
stream of China's wealth, in the time of its great-
est glory, into Russia. Unfortunately, the feeling
in Peking had changed. It was declared that all
trade must be at the frontiers. Thus Peter's enter-
prise ended in failure. In 1805 the Russians
again attempted to open trade with China, but at
the Great Wall envoys from the emperor met
them, announcing that unless Count Goloyken
would perform the kow-tow he would not be re-
ceived, whereupon the count turned back.

A dark day for the Catholic missionaries began
when Kang Hi died, for a "new king arose which
knew not Joseph." Fearing the political influence
of these foreigners, who were abolishing the most
cherished native customs, the next emperor, in
1723, drove the missionaries to Macao, and for-
bade them on pain of death to propagate their
doctrines. Three hundred churches were destroyed,
and a third of a million of converts were left
without their pastors. A century or more after-

190 CHINA'S STORY

wards the Chinese paid dearly for this act of
spoliation.

The emperor Yung Cheng, who died in 1775,
was wholly opposed to foreigners and to throw-
ing down of old barriers which had kept them
out. He feared their presence as much as Califor-
nia labor unions dread the influx of Asiatics into
America. Yet Western nations seemed determined
on intercourse with the sealed empire. In 1727
the Russians, succeeding in obtaining a permanent
foothold in Peking, opened diplomatic relations,
and set some of their young men to study the
Chinese language. Envoys from Portugal came
in the same year, putting their credentials directly
into the hands of the emperor. It is from the
Portuguese that we get such words as mandarin,
joss (Deus or God), junk, etc., which average Euro-
peans think are Chinese and uneducated Chinese
imagine are European.

Outbreaks in the southwestern provinces took
place, and another disturbance in Mongolia later.
When the rebels were put down, Eastern Turk-
estan was annexed to the empire. During these
troubles the Turgut tribe of Buddhist, Kalmuck
Tartars fled westward into Russia and settled
near the Volga River. Not liking the military
conscription, which forced their young men to
serve in the Russian army, they determined, after
fifty years, to return to their original home. On
January 5, 1761, six hundred thousand men,

EAST AND WEST IN CONFLICT 191

women, and children started on the long eastern
journey. As with the Israelites from Egypt, there
was pursuit. Cossacks slaughtered thousands of
the fugitives. Marching over deserts and steppes,
harassed by famine, thirst, hunger, and disease,
besides their human enemies, they were reduced
to less than half the number when they entered
Chinese territory. The great cloud of dust por-
tended their coming to the Kalmuck Khan, who
was then out hunting. In sight of Lake Tengis,
the fugitives rushed forward to assuage their tor-
turing thirst, only to be attacked by the Bashkis,
with nomads of Turkestan, who had been hang-
ing on their skirts. Hundreds were drowned*
The lake was reddened by the blood of the slain.
Finally rescued by a Chinese army, they settled
down in peace and safety. De Quincey, in his
wonderful style, has told this amazing story.

In China the aboriginal tribes, called Miao-tse,
who resisted Chinese culture very much as the
North American Indians refused to accept our
civilization, were from time to time compelled
to move away from their old hunting-grounds
and ancestral seats to the Far West, there to
find new homes. One of these tribes that had
settled on the mountainous borders of Sze-chuen
province entrenched themselves in their fast-
nesses and bade defiance to the local magistrates.
They resisted all attempts at taxation or the
enforcement of Chinese law. They killed the

192 CHINA'S STORY

two envoys sent by the emperor Kien Lung and
burnt his letter in defiance. To march into the
region of the savages and reduce their stock-
ades, meant for an army a campaign of heavy
fighting and arduous toil in the forests without
roads, besides constant danger from ambuscade.
The imperial soldiers captured every stronghold
by assault except the last great fortress, which was
surrounded, and the braves, starved into submis-
sion, were banished and put to hard labor in Ili.
Nevertheless, there are still a few aboriginal tribes
left unconquered in the inaccessible regions of the
empire. China has had for at least twenty-five
centuries an " Indian " problem.

Burma was invaded in 1768, because the Bur-
mese border ruffians had become troublesome. A
treaty of peace was made between the two coun-
tries, the Burmans agreeing to pay to the court at
Peking a tribute every three years. In 1790 the
Grurkas of India, invited by a rival Grand Lama,
who had quarreled with his brother over distribu-
tion of treasure, invaded Tibet, and the Dalai
Lama asked assistance from Peking. A Chinese
army, marching up into the great plateau and as
far as the capital in Nepaul, subdued the Grurkas
and put them under tribute.

So restless a commercial people as the English
were not likely to allow their rivals to have all the
trade with China, but under Queen Elizabeth their
first attempts were not successful. Some English

EAST AND WEST IN CONFLICT 193

merchants in the time of Charles I, on coming to
Macao, were hindered by the Portuguese. They
sailed into the Canton River. When they were
passing the famous batteries of the Bogue, or
bend of the stream, the Chinese gunners opened
fire. This time the Tartars themselves caught a
new kind of Tartar. The plucky Englishmen first
silenced the guns, and then landed a force, cap-
tured the forts, and hoisted their red flag. The
Peking government granted the right to trade,
but the local officers at Canton tried in every way
to hinder business, because they foolishly imagined
that any outflow of silver impoverished the country.
Most Europeans at that time had the same eco-
nomic notions.

In 1793 King George sent Lord Macartney
with many presents to the emperor at Peking,
but the mandarins could not yet conceive of the
Middle Kingdom's awarding social or political
equality to outer barbarians. Unknown to the
British minister, and without intending it as a
joke or deception, the Chinese presented a flag of
welcome to Macartney, under which he sailed to
Tien Tsin. It was inscribed, and so the people
along the river read the legend, taking it as a*
matter of course, " Tribute - bearer from Eng-
land." In Peking Macartney refused to kow-tow,
or make the nine prostrations, unless a magistrate
of equal rank would kneel, and bow nine times be*
fore a portrait of George III. Both sides declined

194 CHINA'S STORY

to yield. Finally, not in the palace, but in a gar-
den, informally, the British minister obtained au-
dience of the emperor, but in reality he was re-
ceived and treated as tribute-bearer from a vassal
state. Trade was opened at Canton, but the Brit-
ish foreigners agreed to obey the local magistrates.
In a word, there was no " extra-territoriality " as
yet. The foreigners' place of business was called
a " factory."

Such was the beginning of that commerce which
brought tea to England in large quantities, so
that a decoction of this herb became not only a na-
tional English, but a universal British beverage.
Its name, pronounced in different ways according
to the local dialects, at Amoy is tea. It was from
this port that the ships of the East India Com-
pany received their cargoes and sailed for An-
napolis, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston,
where the Americans refused to receive it and de-
stroyed or sent it back, or let it mould until worth-
less. ** In this little Chinese leaf was folded the
germ which enlarged into American independ-
ence."

By this time, so many new countries having been
annexed, and peace and prosperity having been
so long the rule, there were three, possibly four
hundred million souls in the Central Empire,
Nevertheless secret societies, opposed to the dy-
nasty, were still active. Comets or " tailed stars "
have caused as much fear and popular commotion

EAST AND WEST IN CONFLICT 195

in China as in Europe. When Halley's comet of
1771 and 1910 appeared, the superstitious multi-
tude saw in it a portent of disaster. The leaders
of the White Lily Society, taking advantage of
the popular excitement, began another rebellion.
In Peking their emissaries twice attempted to as-
sassinate the emperor. The rebellion was stamped
out, only after enormous expense in blood and
treasure.

British trade with China was conducted by the
East India Company, which had a charter of mo-
nopoly. During the wars with Napoleon, Macao
was captured and twice occupied to prevent its
falling into French hands. This proceeding greatly
angered the Peking government. Lord Amherst
was sent out in 1816 to conciliate the Chinese and
arrange matters, but again misunderstandings
arose and only disaster and more mutual irritation
were the results. The two emperors who succeeded
the great Kien Lung, ruling from 1793 to 1821,
and from 1821 to 1851, were noted for their dis-
like of foreigners. In our colonial days, American
sea-f arers, including not a few picturesque pirates,
had visited China, the respectable sailors being on
ships of the West India Company. In 1784 the
Stars and Stripes were hoisted by Americans at
Canton, and commerce with the United States was
begun. Nearly all the first large fortunes made by
Americans were in direct trade with China, or in
traffic between Oregon, Hawaii, and the Chinese

196 CHINA'S STORY

ports. Many town, city, and country names in the
United States are borrowed from China.

As the knowledge of Asian countries proceeded
eastward from India and came to us through
Great Britain, it has happened that words of Hin-
doo origin are still used by Americans. For many
things that are Chinese and Japanese they are,
however, often bad misfits. It puzzles an American
in eastern Asia to find words, coined thousands of
miles westward, thus used. Japan and China, for
example, are not in our Far East, but in the quite
Near West. We also imitate the British in a most
unfortunate use of the word " coolie," which in
India means a member of a low caste and has in
it the idea of religious ban or hatred. There are
no coolies in Japan and hardly any in China. No
educated person ought to apply this word to a
Japanese or free Chinese laborer. Even the fire-
crackers, so long used on the Fourth of July, were
at first called India crackers. More justifiable in-
stances are the use of the word tiffin, meaning
lunch ; chit, meaning a letter, etc. Other words,
not a few, taken out of the mouths of the native
servants and helpers, are absurdly applied.

On the other hand, in recent times, educated
Hindoos, Chinese, and Japanese have made effec-
tual protest against the misuse of certain words
having sacred associations to them, but ignorantly
employed by us. Some of the uses to which Orien-
tal household articles in our country are put make

EAST AND WEST IN CONFLICT 197

Asiatic travelers laugh, grieve, or blush. They
are also angered beyond forgiveness, or they pity
the Christians who can behave so brutally, or loot
so villainously, when away from home. Some of
these solecisms, now almost hopelessly fixed in
popular speech and writings, are as ridiculous as
those seen in '* English as She is Spoke" by some
Orientals. They remind one of the Hindoo who
put a descriptive label in English on an idol sup-
posed to be the chief demon in the infernal re-
gions. Without offense, and seriously, he Eng-
lished it thus : " The King of the Netherlands."
The odd mistakes and amusing situations into
which "griffins," as newcomers in the Far East
are called, have fallen would fill a huge jest-book-

CHAPTEE XVIII

TAI PINGS AND TRADE WAB

IN 1834 the East India Company's charter ex-
pired. The British government, assuming control,
sent out Lord Napier as King George's represen-
tative, supposing that he would be welcomed, and
that China would feel it an honor. The Peking
mandarins refused him audience, insisting that
they would not open diplomatic relations with any
outside nation. Such a proceeding would also spoil
the lucrative trade of the Cohong, or company of
native merchants and mandarins who had charge
of the systematic " squeezing," without which no
business in China, from viceroy to laborer, is done.
The Chinese, conceited as they then were, could
not conceive of treating with any other nation on
equal terms, or with their representative. At one
time, the Japanese were as inhospitable. L/ord
Napier, after many rebuffs, insulted, and kept
a virtual prisoner in the factory at Canton, lost
health, retired to Macao, and died there in 1834.

It seemed necessary to force open the gates of
the hermit nation with gunpowder. Matters hav-
ing become acute, two British frigates had an-
chored in the Canton River to protect the foreign
factories. In 1836 Captain Charles Elliot was

TAI PINGS AND TRADE WAR 199

sent out, and ordered to ignore the Cohong and
deal directly with the authorities. He also was
unsuccessful, and retired to Macao. The Chi-
nese now took high-handed measures against the
import of opium, which had proved itself to be a
curse to their people and country. When the Pe-
king government demanded that the sale of the
"filthy drug" should be restricted, smuggling
became the order of the day. The Chinese then
determined to stop the importation of the stupe-
fying juice of the poppy, even at the cost of war,
and the court appointed as imperial commissioner
the stalwart Lin. This conservative and deter-
mined man at once surrounded the foreign factory
on the land side, and prepared to blockade the
island and thus shut off the aliens. He ordered all
opium from the ships to be put on shore, and
Captain Elliot yielded.

When a Chinese was killed by some foreign
sailors, the demand of Lin for the particular mur-
derer was for good reason refused. Lin gave ten
days to have the culprit ferreted out and handed
over to be dealt with according to Chinese law.
This, as to methods of trial, prisons, and punish-
ment, was at that time as barbarous as had been
that of medieval Europe. War now broke out, and
some Chinese junks were sunk by British cannon.
On one of them, then or later, a Chinese mandarin
was found dead, sitting in his bloodstained silk
robes. He had been reading a Chinese version of

200 CHINA'S STORY

the Four Gospels, to discover what there was in the
teachings of Jesus that made Christians seem so
murderous.

Although this is called the Opium War, it was
really a collision between the ideas of hermits and
those of international law, between the standard
of a local civilization and the growing conscience
of the world. To these, China and all nations
must in time yield fully. The forcing of opium
upon China by the British cannot be justified, but
the opium was the occasion and not the cause of
the hostilities, which lasted from 1840 to 1843.

Kiver battles were fought at Canton and Amoy,
and some Chinese ports were blockaded. The Brit-
ish ships appeared in the north at the mouth of
the Pei-ho Eiver, threatening Peking. The forts
on the Canton Eiver were again attacked. Terms
of peace were proposed and refused. The Bogue
forts were taken. There were intervals of peace
and fighting, and an attack on the city of Canton.
Again negotiations were attempted, but after
their failure, war was carried to the north. Ning-po,
Shanghai, and several forts were captured. The
Chinese with obsolete weapons were beaten.

The lack of unity in the China of the Manchus
and the low state of patriotism were shown at one
place when Chinese mandarins entertained the
British soldiers while the Manchu garrisons were
fighting them. On August 9, 1842, the British
army reached Nanking. Here the fleets carrying

TAI PINGS AND TRADE WAR 201

tribute rice to the capital could be intercepted.
The imperial government therefore sent high com-
missioners, Manchus, and the first treaty between
China and Great Britain was concluded August
29, 1842, a pivotal date in the empire's history.
Its chief points were the opening of five ports
Canton, Amoy, Foochow, Ningpo, and Shanghai
to foreign trade, the payment of an indemnity
of twenty-one million dollars, and the cession
of the Island of Hong Kong, now a part of the
British Empire and one of the greatest centres
of commerce in the world. Other nations shared
in the triumph, the Americans among the first,
President Polk having sent out the Hon. Caleb
Gushing, who made a treaty with China. At the
treaty ports settlements were made and mission-
aries began their Christian labors. Shanghai be-
came one of the model cities of the Far East.

Imposed by force, these agreements were unpop-
ular, and the first business of the Chinese man-
darins was to nullify them as far as possible. Riots
broke out among the people and several English-
men were murdered.

In every old country, the entrance of new ideas,
whether commercial, religious, political, or social,
causes ferment. The first results are not encourag-
ing, because these new ideas lead either to unbal-
anced enthusiasm or to indignation and hatred.
In a protectorate or on conquered territory, they
fill the native students with the notion of irnmedi-

202 CHINA'S STOEY

ate but impossible independence. In China, the
Tai Ping rebellion broke out,

A disappointed scholar named Hung, who had
failed in the examinations, came into contact with
Christian truths. Born near Canton in 1813, the
son of an emigrant fanner who had come from the
north, he devoted himself to study. China is the
land of the free, where there is no permanent no-
bility except the descendants of Confucius, and
where any boy in the land may become prime min-
ister, promotion being by merit and not by rank
or birth. The boy Hung devoted himself to study,
and thrice attended the civil service examinations
at Canton, to get the degree of Bachelor of Arts
and later government employment. His disappoint-
ment so preyed upon his mind that he became ill
and was apparently at the gates of death. He had
a dream in which first a dragon, then a tiger,
and finally a cock entered his room. He saw also
happy men and women in shining robes, who led
him into the palace of Heaven. Taken to a river,
he was washed and made clean. His heart was
taken out, and he was given a new one of a red
color, his wound closing without a scar. A vener-
able being put a sword in his hand and com-
manded him to abolish the worship of evil spirits.

On recovering health Hung pondered the mean-
ing of this dream, but could not at first interpret
it. He took out the Christian tracts which he had
received, and studied them. They seemed to fur-

TAI PINGS AND TRADE WAR 203

nisli a key to the meaning of his dream. He put
himself under the instruction of a missionary, and
even asked for baptism, but it is not known that
he was ever admitted into the church as a mem-
ber. In a word, he was never, in any real sense,
a Christian.

Thoroughly convinced of his divine call, Hung
converted first his own household and then his
neighbors, forming, in 1850, the Shang-ti Hwei,
or Society [for the Worship of] Almighty God.
Their first acts were to smash idols and to level
temples to the ground. Starting out as a purely
religious movement, this became, almost of neces-
sity, political. When the Peking government,
fearing that the movement might become revolu-
tionary, sent two mandarins to suppress it with
force, the followers of Hung declared open rebel-
lion. Being southern Chinamen, they almost as a
matter of course raised the cry, " Exterminate the
Manchus I " When the rebels seized town after
town, tens of thousands, incited by the hope of
plunder, followed the banners inscribed with
characters meaning Heavenly Father, Heavenly
Elder Brother, Heavenly King of the Great Peace
(Tai Ping), Dynasty of the Heavenly Kingdom
(China), etc. When they gave up shaving the
front part of their heads, cut off their queues,
and let their hair grow, they were called the
" Long-Haired Rebels."

It being difficult to feed so large an army,

204 CHINA'S STORY

Hung marched north, capturing cities as he went.
At Cbang-sha he received his first severe check
and lost eighty days in vainly trying to take this
city. The rebels moved into the Yang-tse valley,
taking four large cities by storm. In March, 1853,
they captured Nanking, which, after a horrible
massacre of its people, was made the capital of
the new dynasty.

Hung, claiming to be the brother of Christ,
having taken the personal title of Heavenly King
and the name of Heavenly Virtue for his reign,
sent forth a Book of Celestial Decrees, which he
declared contained the revelations given to him
by God the Heavenly Father and by Christ his
Celestial Brother. Proclaimed as emperor of
China, and surrounded by his army of eighty
thousand men, which was ever increasing, he ap-
pointed four assistant "kings," of the North,
South, East, and West, to help in ruling the em-
pire. He depended upon his brave and able gen-
eral Chung for success in the field of war.

Now came the reaction so often seen in the ca-
reer of such men, who have risen high and fallen
low. Leaving the actual direction of affairs in the
hands of his subordinates, Hung, who probably
never knew by any real experience of life what it
is to be a Christian, gave himself up to unbridled
license and apparently lost all energy. Some for-
eigners, including missionaries (with whom the
writer has talked concerning their adventures),

TAI PINGS AND TKAI>E WAB 2O5

who cherished hopes that the movement promised
a new and better life for China, visited Hung 1 at
his court. Their eyes were opened when they saw
the disorder and fanaticism of the rebels. A 17
ideas of the regeneration of China through the
Tai Pings were dispelled.

In March, 1853, a rebel army tried to seize the
city of ELai Feng and failed. Repulsed also from
Tien Tsin, they retreated to Nanking. Li Hung
Chang, afterwards known to the world, now ap-
peared on the stage. Raising a regiment of mili-
tia, he harassed the rear-guard of the rebels, and
for this success was introduced to imperial favor.
The government troops regained their courage,
retook several cities, and put a new face upon
affairs. The Tai Pings were now confined to the
Yang-tse valley.

Meanwhile the sixth Manchu Emperor, ruling
from Peking, Tai Kwang, who had held the
sceptre since 1821, died after a reign of thirty
years and was succeeded by Hien Feng, who was
to enjoy or suffer during eleven troublous years
the duties of his high station.

CHAPTER XIX

THE ARROW AND FLOWERY FLAG

THE attention both o the Peking government
and of foreigners was now turned from the Long-
Haired Kebels, for the Peking mandarins were
being forced to keep treaty stipulations. As on
another continent, the dogma had been taught in
Asia, "no faith to be kept with the heretics."
Now the Chinese were to suffer for breaking sol-
emn promises. At this time there appeared on
the scene a new person, Harry Parkes, who not
only was destined to play the great part of a
strong and brave man, in forcing the Manchu
government to tell the truth, keep faith, be hon-
est, and learn to hate treachery as an abominable
thing, but who also assisted by his indomitable
firmness and penetration of shams to temper the
Japanese to new ideals. 1 Parkes taught two na-

1 I knew Sir Harry Parkes intimately during my stay in the
Far East, from 1870 to 1874, besides many others, Americans,
Europeans, and Chinese, who in China at this time saw hoth the
British war operations and the Tai Pings ; and a goodly numher
o those who were later prominent and active in the Par East.
From this point, I can speak as one who heard much from living
witnesses, both Chinese and foreign, who, besides being scholars t
were, during part of the eyents, near the scene of their occur*
renoe.

THE ARROW AND FLOWERY FLAG 207

tions that the best way to "save face" was to
practice "truth in the inward parts."

While matters were in a state of tension and
the question whether the Chinese would keep their
contracts was unsettled, "the Arrow affair"
precipitated war. At Hong Kong, the British
governor had, with certain provisos, allowed
Chinese vessels to sail under the British flag.
With a European hull and Chinese rigging, such
a vessel, the Arrow, for example, was called a
lorcha. While she was lying at Whampoa, in the
autumn of 1856, a Chinese mandarin came on
board, hauled down the British flag, and carried
off twelve of the crew as prisoners to a Chinese
man-of-war.

At once Parkes wrote to Commissioner Yet
demanding apology for the insult to the British
flag and the return of the twelve men to the ship.
Yeh began the tactics of evasion, denial, and
controversy. He finally proposed to send back
nine men, but ignored the demand for an apo-
logy. Parkes refused. Yeh delayed, and war pre-
parations on the part of the British began.

An outsider, neither British nor Chinese, In
order to get at the truth, need not trouble him-
self overmuch as to what were the exact provoca-
tions on either side. It is more important to
study principles behind the events. The Arrow
affair was not the cause, but only the occasion, of
the war. On the one hand were Chinese, who

208 CHINA'S STORY

looked with contempt upon all foreigners as of
an inferior race, because they had not the Con-
fucian culture. Such persons, therefore, were not
to be treated with respect or on equal terms. To
the Chinese, Western civilization, based as they
believed it to be chiefly on shopkeeping and mar-
kets, on trade and machine-shops, and on war
and lawless rapacity, even to the forcing of a
poisonous drug upon China, was little better than
that of barbarism, and in their dense ignorance
they refused to be enlightened. Furthermore, in
all their own dealings with aliens or natives, it
was not reality which they sought. Their first
and last idea was to " save face." The average
mandarin would often rather lose his head than
to " lose face." " They cannot progress in civiliza-
tion until they become truthful," is the verdict of
their great friend, Dr. S. Wells "Williams, con-
cerning the Chinese.

To some students, however, it was even then
evident that China's doctrine of universal sov-
ereignty must be blown to atoms before there was
much hope of progress, or of freedom for such
nations as Japan and Korea, to say nothing of
the prospects of peaceful intercourse on equal
terms with the nations of Europe and America.
Harry Parkes was only too ready to deal the
hoary doctrine a staggering blow.

Apart from his firmness and other traits of
character, Parkes knew, more than most men of

THE ARROW AND FLOWERY FLAG 209

that time, how the Chinese thought and felt. He
had come to China when but a boy of thirteen,
and had been set to work by Mr. Gutzlaff, his
uncle, to study the written language. This Ger-
man gentleman would not let his nephew have his
breakfast until he had learned a certain number
of characters. In playing with Chinese boys,
Parkes learned the spoken language perfectly
and became master of Chinese etiquette. He
was a loyal Englishman, on whose heart it was
written, " Make England great." A high Japa-
nese officer once said of Parkes, " He was the only
one among the foreign ministers that I could not
twist round my little finger." Firmness was his
chief characteristic, and the want of it had al-
ready been aptly illustrated in the weaker per-
sonality of certain British envoys in China. The
Chinese roused a lion when they played falsely
with Parkes. He knew every one of their tricks,
could foil them at every enterprise, rip open their
hypocrisy, and beat them in every move at their
own game. None more frankly or generously than
he could welcome and meet every honest proposal
or appreciate a just action.

It was common for brutal Europeans in walk-
ing through the crowded streets to beat people with
their canes over the head, and at home to whip
their Chinese servants. Drunken sailors violated
all the rules of decency, while the licentiousness
of many of the foreign residents was startling.

210 CHINA'S STORY

The Chinese had other reasons for hating for-
eigners. The Portuguese at Macao conducted a
traffic which was only slightly less abominable
than the African slave-trade. They kidnapped
Chinese and sent them off, on the forced contract
system, to work in California, Cuba, and Peru.
Then also, although dealing in opium had been
declared illegal, the drug was smuggled into
China, and often by men in ships of the Arrow
class, which had a certain protection tinder a for-
eign flag. All these things fed the fires of hate
among the Chinese, to whom all aliens seemed
frightful, ugly, brutish, ill-smelling, or undesirable
people.

In the war which soon opened, the Bogue forts
were once again captured. Canton was bom-
barded, and the Yamen, or official house of Com-
missioner Yeh, was destroyed by shells. The
British had not force enough to hold the city,
and its evacuation by them made the Chinese be-
lieve that their enemy had been beaten. Becom-
ing more defiant, a price was set on British
heads, the factories outside Canton were burned,
and several Europeans put to death. The Chi-
nese chief baker of the Hong Kong colony, at
official instigation, put arsenic in the morning sup-
ply of bread to poison all the foreigners, but he
failed because he had sprinkled too much in his
flour.

There has never been a war between the United

THE ARROW AND FLOWERY FLAG 211

States and China, but during the Parkes-Yeh
controversy American steamers were twice fired
upon when passing the barrier forts near Canton,
and an American sailor was killed. In those
days the average Chinese knew little about for-
eign flags. Still it seemed necessary to teach
ignorant mandarins that all foreigners were not
opium-smugglers, and that peaceful neutrals had
rights. Commodore Armstrong, in command of
the United States men-of-war San Jacinto, Ports-
mouth, and Levant, ordered Captain (afterwards
Hear Admiral) Eoote to capture and destroy the
forts. These were built of granite and mounted
large cannon.

On the 16th of November, the heavy steam fri-
gate San Jacinto moved up the river, but could not
get near enough to use her guns, so the little Ameri-
can steamer Willamette towed the sailing sloop-of-
war Portsmouth, which, under the Chinese fire of
grape and round shot, got into position. At first the
broadside guns of the Portsmouth sent a rain of
eight-inch shells inside the fort, but soon the cur-
rent caught the ship and swung her round stern-
wise to the fort. The danger of a raking fire was
great. Poote ran out a gun from the stern port
and fought until dark.

Several days were consumed in diplomacy.
Then on the 21st the U. S. S. Levant, a sailing
ship, towed by the egg-shell launch Kum Fa, after
an hour's cannonade silenced one fort, A storm-

212 CHINA'S STORY

ing party of four hundred American marines and
sailors, in boats towed by the Kum Fa, moved up
the river under a hot fire. One cannon shot struck
the launch of the San Jacinto and killed three
men. Disembarking, our men started over the
muddy rice-fields in the face of grape, ball, jingal-
shot, rockets, and big feathered bamboo arrows,
six feet long and shot out of guns. Happily for the
Americans the Chinese, though they stood to their
guns nobly in the fight, fired too high. When our
men entered the fort the garrison broke and ran.

About three hundred Chinese were struck by
shot, shell, or bullets. Our loss was seven killed
and twenty-two wounded. In the fort were found
176 guns, one a brass monster of eight-inch bore,
twenty-two feet long and three feet in diameter
at the breech.

Nevertheless this was not considered war, nor
did any reason exist for the disturbance of good
relations between the United States and China.
Commissioner Yeh neither apologized nor showed
any feeling over the episode. American honor was
vindicated, and Yeh's own words closed the inci-
dent when he said:

" There is no matter of strife between our re-
spective nations. Henceforth, let the fashion of
the flags which American ships employ be clearly
defined, and inform me what it is beforehand.
This will be the verification of the friendly rela-
tions which exist between the two countries."

THE ARROW AND FLOWERY FLAG 213

In this spirit China has ever acted, and the Cen-
tral Empire and the Country of the Flowery Hag
have ever been at peace. In 1900 the American Ad-
miral, Louis Kempff, refused to join with the allied
nations in making war on China. When the sol-
diers of the United States and of China first met
in hostile array, the war had been provoked by
Europeans.

The British government ordered a fleet of
transports with five thousand troops to China, but
the Sepoy mutiny breaking out in India, Lord
Elgin, the High Commissioner, diverted these re-
inforcements to India, where they did great ser-
vice, and a new expedition was sent from England.
Meanwhile the entire fleet of Chinese war-junks
had been destroyed. The French these being
the days of Napoleon III joined the British in
hostilities, making a force of 20,000 men. Canton
was again assaulted and taken, and Commissioner
Yeh captured. He was sent as an exile to Calcutta,
where after two years he ended his days.

Yeh was the man who, when asked why he never
read anything about foreign men or countries,
made answer that he had already digested the
contents of all the books in the world worth
reading. In a word, nothing except the Chinese
classics were worth the attention of a man of edu-
cation. Canton was ruled three years by a British
commission, without the usual " squeezes " of the
mandarins.

214: CHINA'S STORY

Lord Elgin, foiled in his polite attempts to
open negotiations with the Peking government,
sailed with the combined British and French fleets
to the mouth of the Pei-ho River, capturing the
Taku forts, and then moving on to Tien Tsin.
There the two peace commissioners on behalf of
the emperor met him. A treaty in fifty-six articles
was signed, June 26, 1858, by which the Chinese
agreed to receive a resident British minister at the
court of Peking, to open five new ports to com-
merce, to allow British trading in the Yang-tse
River, to permit foreigners to travel in the inte-
rior, and to tolerate the Christian religion, besides
paying four million taels for the expenses of the
war. When the tariff was revised, to the shame of
Great Britain, since often confessed, the opium
traffic was legalized. This proved in the end to be
a more terrible curse to China even than war, for
henceforth instead of cultivating the earth for food,
the Chinese, especially in Yunnan, began to raise
the poppy. Native opium now debauched and im-
poverished the people and helped to produce fam-
ines.

It was now to be seen whether the Chinese
would hold faithfully to the treaty. Next year Sir
Frederick Bruce, with the French, Russian, and
American ministers, arrived at Shanghai, but the
imperial mandarins sent word to them not to come
to Peking. They determined to go. The Chinese
proposed to the ministers to land further up the

THE 'MORNING FREIGHT' ENTERING CHANGSHA, CAPITAL OF
HUNAN PROVINCE

THE ARROW AND FLOWERY FLAG 215

coast, at Pehtang, and to be escorted overland to
Peking. In other words, they were invited to fol-
low the time-honored road by which the tribute-
bearers, coming from petty and subject countries,
traveled. The envoys refused, demanding rights
which any civilized nation would have yielded.

The war dogs were let loose again. On the night
of June 23 the British, moving to attack the
Taku forts, found the stream was blocked by bar-
riers of great stakes held together with heavy iron
chains. One of the booms was blown up during
the night, and the next morning Admiral Hope,
with his thirteen vessels, tried to force the pas-
sage. This time, however, the walls were stronger
and mounted with heavier cannon. The Chinese
gunners had the exact range, which was very
short, and quickly sank two British gunboats.
When the British landed a force to capture the
forts from the rear, the men got stuck in the mud,
while the Chinese artillery played upon them with
grape and canister. After terrible loss, they had
to give up and retreat.

An American commodore, Josiah Tatnall, was
at this time in Chinese waters. He was the same
officer who, during the Mexican War, with the two
little gunboats Spitfire and Vixen, towing a line
of "mosquito boats," steamed to within eighty
yards of a mighty stone fortress at Vera Cruz.
His object was to divert the fire of the castle from
our naval battery, built by Captain Eobert E.

216 CHINA'S STORY

Lee and mounted with the ships' guns from Com-
modore Perry's squadron. Tatnall held his place
for half an hour in a furious cannonade against
walls that were many feet thick and armed with
ordnance, one shell from which, if it had hit any-
thing, could have blown both gun and mosquito
boats out of the water. Covered with clouds of
spray, Tatnall was called away by Commodore
Perry, when he saw the castle gunners improving
their range. Although Tatnall obeyed, he stormed
with chagrin, not liking to retreat without bloody
decks. To his men, all wet with the spray, he said,
*' War shortens life, but it broadens it."

Now, in China, Tatnall was about to convey
our minister, Mr. Ward, in the chartered steamer
Toeywan into the river. Of necessity he remained
on his ship outside the bar, a spectator and neu-
tral. But when he saw the sinking British ships,
the silenced guns, the flag-vessel Plover drifting
a helpless wreck, with nearly all her men killed or
disabled, and the admiral wounded, only the one
bow gun gallantly served by a weary squad, be-
sides eighty-nine killed and three hundred and
forty-five men of the fleet wounded, the American
commodore could stand it no longer.

It was not in him to see men of the same blood
and language as his own thus badly cut up by the
Chinese. He ordered his cutter, and in the thick
of the fight passed through the fleet and the hell
of fire to visit and cheer the British admiral and

THE ARROW AND FLOWERT FLAG 217

to offer him the services of the American surgeon.
A round shot from the Chinese fort struck and
shattered the stern of his boat, killing the cox-
swain. This only roused the fighting blood of the
American sailors and their chief to the hottest.
When he reached the stern of the Plover, the sur-
prised British officer asked him, as he stepped
aboard, why he had come.

Tatnall's reply has become classic. Sir Walter
Scott, in one of his poems, quoted the old Scotch
proverb, " Blood is warmer than water." Tatnall
gave the answer, " Blood is thicker than water,"
and asked if he could aid the wounded. Mean-
while the American sailors rowed round to the bow
of the Plover and clambered on board. Giving
their British sailor mates a rest, they loaded and
fired the bow gun for a round or two, until Tat-
nall, finding out what they were doing, ordered
them off. He roared with his voice, but he shot
approval out of his eyes, and his men understood.

Tatnall's excuse for a technical violation of in-
ternational law, for which the Chinese as yet
cared nothing, was expressed in a phrase and a
sentiment destined to strengthen and deepen as
the years flow on. With equal humanity, Tatnall
offered the services of his surgeons to aid the
wounded Chinese. His offer was declined. At that
time, neither the Chinese government nor possibly
the black-haired race was particularly interested
in saving lives endangered in war. Indeed, the

218 CHINA'S STORY

Chinese government then had no consuls or min-
isters abroad, and paid no attention to its people
who left China to go into other countries. Every
emigrant was reckoned as a foreigner or a dead
man. Until the present century, a hospital corps
in war was not thought of. Every man took his
chances.

Mr. Ward, the American minister, went to Peh-
tang, the place appointed by the Chinese, and was
escorted by soldiers to Peking, but he refused to
make the kow-tow. Without seeing the emperor,
he exchanged ratifications outside the capital at
Pehtaog.

To wipe out the disgrace of the repulse at the
Taku forts, an army of thirteen thousand British,
chiefly Indian troops, and seven thousand French,
gathered to punish the Peking mandarins. The
plan was to take Pehtang first and then attack
the Taku forts from the rear, a plan which upset
Chinese calculations. In battle on land, the Sikh
lancers from India, in a terrible charge, beat
the Tartar cavalry. At the second attack on the
Taku forts, the native gunners bravely stood to
their work inside, while laborers, hired in Canton,
helped the allies to place scaling ladders on the
walls of the fort ! The Chinese had race pride, but
patriotism was not yet. After one fort had been
taken, the other four forts soon hoisted the white
flag. The way was open and the fleet advanced up
the river.

THE ARROW AND FLOWERY FLAG 219

Then began the march on Peking, during which
both Mr. Parkes and Mr. Loch discovered an
ambuscade o eighty thousand Chinese troops
around the camp-ground proposed for the allies.
Parkes and thirty-four men were taken prisoners
and confined with the lowest criminals in Peking.
Again a battle was fought. The Tartar horsemen
behaved splendidly, but were compelled to retreat
before the Sikh lancers. One more battle was
fought, in which the Chinese were beaten, the
French being conspicuously brave.

The Manchu Emperor fled, and his brother,
Prince Kung, was left to arrange terms. He too
disappeared. Then to show that punishment was
to be meted out, not upon the Chinese people but
upon the rulers, the imperial palace was given
up to sack and loot. The British and French
troops, after loading them selves with all that they
could carry, ran riot in smashing and damaging
everything that was portable. This brought Prince
Kung to terms. He released all that were liv-
ing of the thirty-four prisoners, eleven in number,
who had survived the tortures suffered in prison.
In vengeance for the men thus barbarously mur-
dered, Lord Elgin ordered the Summer Palace to
be burned to the ground. The stripes fell on the
right back.

CHAPTEE XX

PEACE UNDEE HEAVEN

PRINCE KUNG persuaded the court to open
peace negotiations. The treaty of Tien Tsin was
ratified and a new one signed in the Hall of
Ceremonies, October 22, 1860. It provided for
an indemnity of eighty thousand taels, permission
for Chinese subjects to emigrate, the opening of
Tien Tsin as a treaty port, and the enlarging of
Hong Kong by the annexation of Ivowlun.

All this, humiliating as it was, was little, as
compared with one provision in the French treaty.
This stipulated that the Chinese government
should pay an indemnity for all churches, build-
ings, and land which a century or two before had
belonged to the native Christians, and that the
money should be paid to the French envoy at
Peking. This occasioned the greatest difficulty
and confusion, and was the seed of much trouble
in the future, because most of the property had
long before passed into the ownership of those
who had honestly bought it. In the Chinese draft
of the French treaty was another clause permit-
ting the missionaries to buy land, erect buildings,
and reside in the interior.

Winter coming on, the allies left for Shanghai.

PEACE UNDER HEAVEN 221

Prince Kung could not persuade his imperial mas-
ter to return to Peking, and shortly after this
the emperor died, leaving Tung Chi, a child four
years of age, the heir apparent. Now the danger
was that the court, having returned to Peking,
should be controlled in the interests of the anti-
foreign party. Prince Kung therefore made an
arrangement with the two empresses, the mother
and the dowager, and seizing control of power,
arrested and put to death the leaders of the anti-
foreign party. Then he and the empress dowager
ruled the empire. This was the time -honored
method of procedure in an Asiatic country, when
there is no national legislature. It was much the
same in meaning as moving a vote of censure, but
the method was different from that of the British
Parliament or the American Congress. Unanim-
ity of opinion was secured by removing the heads
of those who differed. Very much the same thing
was done in Japan, about the same time, by the
premier li, and later by clan leaders. In Korea
the reformers of 1875 followed a similar pro-
gramme.

The Chinese now began to recognize the fact
that Western nations must be treated decently.
A department of foreign affairs, called the Tsung-li
Yamen, was created. Of its three members, Prince
Kung was the head. It was now possible for for-
eign envoys to meet Chinese officers regularly for
the transaction of business.

222 CHINA'S STORY

The war with the Europeans had drawn away
the imperial troops to the north. The Long-
Haired Rebels had become more active and had
captured several other cities. When the govern-
ment forces surrounded Nanking, the Tai Ping
general, Chung, defeated them in a great battle
with a loss of five thousand men. City after city
was captured, until the Long Hairs occupied the
whole peninsula between the Yang-tse Eiver and
Hang Chow Bay.

The viceroys of the two great provinces had
asked foreign assistance against the Tai Pings,
but thus far in vain. In Shanghai, a native patri-
otic association, taking the advice of Li Hung
Chang, then a province governor, engaged two
Americans, Ward and Burgevine, to organize a
force of foreigners to fight the rebels. Burgevine
soon quarreled with the mandarins. Ward organ-
ized a force of two hundred men and captured
one city, but in his attack on a second was wounded.
When the Tai Pings attacked Shanghai, they
were easily driven away by foreign troops firing
from the walls.

Ward recovered from his wound, but as the
Shang-hai authorities wished neutrality to be pre-
served, he was not allowed to employ any but na-
tive troops. He therefore selected foreign officers
and organized the nucleus of what afterwards
was called the Ever Victorious Army, which Gor-
don, the Englishman, enlarged and led. Under

PEACE UNDER HEAVEN 223

Ward these Chinese became seasoned veterans
and won many victories over the rebels. The
British commanders, finding that the policy of
neutrality had been a mistake, agreed to clear
the country of rebels within a radius of thirty
miles around Shang-hai. This was done by the
end of 1862 ; but meanwhile in September Ward
had been killed in battle near Ningpo. After vari-
ous changes and troubles, Gordon took the ariny
organized by Ward and divided it into five regi-
ments of infantry and one of artillery, increasing
it to about three thousand men.

Between civil strife and foreign troubles, the
emperor Hien Fung died and the little boy Tung
Chi, who did not end his minority until 1873, was
proclaimed ruler of China, the regents at Peking
carrying on the government.

War was carried on by stratagem as well as by
strategy. Before Tai Tsang, besieged by the gov-
ernment army, some rebels in the city shaved off
the front of their heads, and, making queues, pre-
tended to be imperialists by choice. They offered
to lead the attacking force inside of the gates, but
as soon as these were opened, the rebels within
slaughtered the entire imperial force thus enticed
inside. Gordon, however, succeeded later in cap-
turing Tai Tsang. When a mutiny broke out be-
cause the soldiers loaded with plunder refused to
march, Gordon's firmness saved the day. In a
second case of insubordination, he had the ring-

224 CHINA'S STORY

leaders pulled out and shot. After that, discipline
was maintained.

It was not only in severity of rule, but in the
simple matter of telling the truth, that the ideas
of Gordon, a typical Englishman and man of
honor, came into contact with medieval and sav-
age notions, which were less Chinese than they
were of the ancient world. Yet while this is so,
the incident illustrates the need of interpreters
and of men understanding one another. Su Chow
was difficult to capture, but inside the city there
was division of council. The rebel chiefs agreed
to surrender, on receiving what they understood
to be a promise that their lives would be spared.
But Gordon could not talk Chinese, or the rebels
English. Gordon supposed that Li Hung Chang
assented. As soon as the city had surrendered,
the rebel leaders were invited to meet Li Hung
Chang, but they came in swaggering, and not at
all humble. They were seized and had their heads
cut off. This act so enraged Gordon, who consid-
ered it rank treachery, that he pursued Li Hung
Chang with a revolver.

Orientals, though not valuing truth when it is
disagreeable to speak it, do not so often seem to lie
when we understand their language. Many have
been the mistakes of interpreters, often ludicrous,
sometimes disastrous, yet they have done a large
and honorable part in the good work of brother-
hood. Gordon after a while resumed command,

PEACE UNDER HEAVEN 225

believing that unless the advantages gained were
followed up, the war would be indefinitely pro-
longed. When the last stronghold of the rebels,
Nanking, was invested, the women and children
were sent out, because there was no food. The Tai
Ping leader took poison and died by suicide June
30, 1864. The imperialists, having blown up part of
the wall, entered through the breach on the 19th
of July. The dead leader's son was immediately
executed, but his brave general Chung was per-
mitted to finish the writing of his memoirs. He
was then led out and beheaded.

The Tai Ping rebellion was over, during which
it is believed twenty millions of lives were sacri-
ficed and some of the finest provinces in China
devastated. To-day in many cities acres of ruins*
once occupied by the rebels, remain to tell of their
awful work. In gratitude for his eminent services
the Chinese government built a memorial shrine
in commemoration of the brave American, Fred-
erick Townsend Ward, born at Salem, Massachu-
setts, in 1881.

Gordon advised Li Hung Chang to make the
Ever Victorious Army the basis of a standing 1
army, but this mandarin feared that such a force
might become too powerful. While Europe has
long staggered under the awful expense of vast
standing armies and costly navies, and passed
through an untold number of wars, armed up-
risings, riots, revolutions, and conflicts of all

226 CHINA'S STORY

kinds, China, until pressed on all sides by the
ambitious and predatory Western nations, never
kept a standing army. In most places in the em-
pire there is no permanent police force.

During all this time a fleet of gunboats, ordered
by Prince Kung and built in England, lay idle
when most needed ; because the Chinese refused,
even as the Japanese have persisted in refusing,
to give foreigners control of their military or naval
forces. The Peking government decided how the
fleet purchased by them was to be commanded.
The British gentleman who had been appointed
inspector of the Imperial Customs was dismissed,
and in his place Mr. Robert Hart was appointed,
who by tact, ability, and untiring energy won un-
bounded influence with the Chinese.

Hart was a young Irishman, the descendant of
a Captain van Hardt, in King William's army
of 1688, who with Irish grit and Dutch tenacity
wrought his wonderful work. During his service
of over forty years, he acted as mediator, staved
off war, kept the peace, equipped the coast with
lighthouses, revenue vessels, navy, and army, and
created in the customs service a spirit of honesty
and fair dealing that to the old-time mandarins
seemed unearthly, if not supernatural.

With a navy of foreign-built ships, it was neces-
sary to have a flag to distinguish the country and
to be able to hold communication, in the language
of naval signals, with the war- vessels of other na-

PEACE UKDEB HEAVEN 227

tions. A triangular yellow flag, with the device of
a dragon upon it, was adopted. Following the gen-
eral fashion of the naval world, this later was
made oblong, but the dragon remained. The flag
of Korea had the eight diagrams, with the red and
yellow symbols of creation. The flag of Japan
bears the red rising sun on a white field.

Another uprising in large proportions broke out
among the Chinese Mahometans in Yunnan. In
theory, China allows no interference with the cus-
toms of the country as handed down from the
times of Confucius. The state religion is as much
opposed to Mahometanism as to Christianity.
Nominally, but not really, other religions are tol-
erated, but there is no such thing in China as
perfect freedom of conscience. China is theoret-
ically, at least, a persecuting country, as much so
as is Russia, or as were the old nations of Europe.
In spite of all imperial proclamations, even toler-
ation is not a settled fact. The Mahometans in
China are tolerated because they are so strong and
so numerous. Some of the ablest Chinese generals
have followed the faith of Islam.

The Mahometans in Yunnan, fearing that the
murder of all their fellow believers had been de-
creed in Peking, took up arms. Their leader as-
sumed the title of sultan and sent agents to Great
Britain asking for his recognition as an independ-
ent sovereign. The rebellion was put down and
the garrison of the chief stronghold massacred.

228 CHINA'S STOBY

Another Mahometan uprising broke out in the
northwest. The tribes in central Asia sympathiz-
ing, Yakoop Beg (or Governor Jacob) assumed
the command. To repress disorder, the [Russians
sent an army into Hi, and in 1871 established a
government in the Chinese city of Kuldja. The
Chinese general Tso, marching leisurely with an
army, sowing the seed and raising the crops with
which to feed his soldiers on the way, quelled this
rebellion, and later Ili was restored to the Chinese.

CHAPTER XXI

JAPAN, KOREA, AND DUAL SOVEREIGNTY

THE government in Peking was gradually yield-
ing to reason. In 1857, under the persuasion of
the American minister, Mr. Anson Burlingame,
it sent its first embassy to foreign countries under
his leadership, appointing two Chinese envoys to
act with him. In the United States and Europe,
Mr. Burlingame did much to enlighten the dense
ignorance o Western people in regard to the
most unknown of the great nations. Rather be-
cause of this ignorance than of the things which
he ought not to have said, he was misunderstood.
The Chinese people were not yet ready to open
their country in such a way that foreigners would
be the chief financial gainers. On July 4, 1868,
he concluded the famous Burlingame treaty, which
gave reciprocal privileges to Chinese and Amer-
icans. Going to Europe the embassy concluded
similar treaties with China, Denmark, Sweden,
Holland, and Prussia. Unfortunately Mr. Bur-
lingame died at St. Petersburg while negotiating
with Russia.

The feeling of Chinese against foreigners had
not very much changed. One reason for this was
quite plain. Except missionaries, few outsiders

230 CHINA'S STORY

had done much for improvement or conciliation.
Anti-foreign riots took place, even while the em-
bassy was in Europe. The unfortunate expedi-
tion of the French to Korea was a colossal blunder,
and acted like a blast of wind upon smouldering
embers in China. The old regent of Korea had,
in March, 1866, put nine French missionaries to
death and persecuted the native Christians. The
French minister at Peking, who had been an offi-
cer in the corps of African Zouaves, and had
carried into diplomacy the language, manners,
and methods of the camp, ordered an expedition
of vengeance. Meanwhile, in August, some Amer-
icans and British, in the schooner General Sher-
man, from China, while on a disreputable expedi-
tion into Korea, and supposed to be Frenchmen,
were killed at Ping Yang. In October Admiral
Eoze with the French squadron went up the Han
Eiver, attacked the city of Kangwa and looted
it. He sent into the interior a party of one hun-
dred and forty men, which was attacked and had
to retreat. On a second expedition the French
force was badly cut up and Admiral Eoze came
back, having failed to accomplish anything. To
his chagrin, the government at Paris disapproved
of the expedition.

The authorities of Washington or London were
now expected to act at once and dispatch a strong
force to Korea, but nothing was done. The French
had the Germans on their hands, and the report

DUAL SOVEREIGNTY 231

spread like a gale through China that the hated
French had been driven away by the Koreans.
These Europeans, as the Chinese believed, were
like the highwayman who puts a pistol to the
traveler's head. They had extorted the value of
land justly confiscated long ago, and had defied
their rulers and decent government in protecting
the converts of their missionaries.

The ruffians, of whom there are many millions
in China, immediately now saw their opportunity.
In Tien Tsin, especially, the minds of the people
had been doubly inflamed by the publication of an
anti-Christian book, entitled " Death Blow to Cor-
rupt Doctrine," intended to exterminate Chris-
tianity, which denounced the religion of Jesus in
the most violent language conceivable. French
Roman Catholic ladies and gentlemen in Tien
Tsin, despite their benevolent and noble work,
were very unpopular because of this clause re-
quiring the payment of indemnity. But what
acted as sparks on gunpowder were the stories,
persistently circulated, that the Sisters of Charity
habitually kidnapped children to make medicine
out of their hearts and eyes. When photographs
were first seen in China, the people believed that
part of one's soul went out of him into the pic-
ture, so that if a man sat often before the camera
there would be nothing left of him, not even a
shadow. Arguing also from the image on the eye-
ball, which one looking into the eyes of another

232 CHINA'S STORY

sees, and which is only a reflection, though itself
a natural photograph, the ignorant people ima-
gined that the chemicals used in photography,
which foreigners made use of, were made from
the eyes of Chinese infants. Hence, the natives
argued, the great desire of the Christian mission-
aries to buy or get from the dung-piles or rubbish-
heaps on which they had been thrown, or out of
the floating jars in the river, the bodies of in-
fants, mostly female. Those in charge of the
orphanage wisely invited a committee of five
Chinese gentlemen to come and satisfy them-
selves as to the facts.

Unfortunately, this was the time of Napoleon
III. The French consul, being present, was
angry at what he considered an outrageous intru-
sion, and drove the Chinese gentlemen into the
street. Meanwhile a great mob had gathered to
hear the committee's report. Excited when they
saw their countrymen insulted by being put out,
they attacked the consulate. On applying to the
superintendent of trade for military assistance,
the consul was informed that all military orders
must come from the viceroy of the province. He
then advised the Frenchmen to remain at the
Yainen, or office.

The consul refused, and going out into the
street, was attacked and beaten to death. The
ferocious mob then massacred the Sisters of
Charity and set on fire the orphanage and cathe-

DUAL SOVEREIGNTY 233

dral. Twenty foreigners, with most of their na-
tive assistants, were put to death.

Negotiations followed. The supposed ringlead-
ers were decapitated. Compensation in money was
made. The Chinese local officer voyaged to France
to make apologies, and the government at Peking
tried without success to get the obnoxious clause
of the treaty annulled. The missionaries of the
Koman Church still separate themselves and their
converts from the jurisdiction of the local man-
darins, so that the Chinese really have no sover-
eignty over their subjects when attached to this
form of Christianity.

The young emperor was considered old enough
to be married in 1872, and on October 16 the
wedding took place with great ceremony. The
foreign ministers were given audience June 29,
1873, in the hall for the receiving of tributary
nations, or Pavilion of Purple Light. This was so
pleasing to foreigners that many of them leaped
to the conclusion that China would immediately
become a field for commercial invasion. These
hopes were not fulfilled. China was not ready yet
to have her economic and social system thrown
into confusion by railways, telegraphs, and the
machinery which foreigners were only too glad to
sell. Such hasty action would mean the throwing
out of employment hundreds of thousands of
laborers, and long-continued distress. The Boxer
uprising of 1900 was thus caused.

234 CHINA'S STORY

In addition to floods, famines, and other inte-
rior troubles, China was now to receive the first
serious assault upon her hoary doctrine of univer-
sal sovereignty, not from the West, but from a
nation whom she had long looked upon as vassal.
A train of events began, which was to end the last
of the dual sovereignties of Asia, in Korea, Loo
Choo, Tibet, Burma, Annam, and Hi. Korea and
the Loo Choo Islands, being too weak to defend
themselves, had lived under the motto, " Courtesy
to China and Politeness to Japan." The Japanese
had for eight hundred years claimed the Islands
of the Sleeping Dragon (Biu Kin) or the Long
Eope (Okinawa) as they called them, as part of
their empire. The Chinese wrote the name with
characters meaning pendant tassels, signifying the
fringe on the great robe of the Central Empire.

China had never pretended to govern the east
side of Formosa, the high mountain region in-
habited by head-hunters. These copper -colored
savages made the possession of human heads,
chiefly Chinese, the basis of property, the unit of
value, and the social necessity of a would-be bride-
groom, before he could get a wife or found a
family. It was even said that these men in the
bamboo jungle were cannibals.

Formosa is the original home of the morning-
glory and the blue bamboo, and is the island of
camphor forests. On its eastern coast many Amer-
ican and European vessels have been wrecked and

DUAL SOVEBE1GNTY 235

their crews beheaded. Expeditions of chastise-
ment had been attempted, but it being impossible
for white men to fight the aborigines in the hot
and steaming jungles, these were all failures. In
one such expedition, under the American Admiral
Bell, with the warships Hartford and Wyoming, on
June 19, 1867, Lieutenant A. S. McKenzie was
killed, Mr. Sigsbee, later Captain of the U. S.
battleship Maine, in Havana harbor, being present.
After 1868, the Mikado having been restored
to ancient power, the Tokyo government sent two
companies of soldiers to the capital of Eiu Kiu,
lowered the kinglet of the islands to the grade of
marquis, and brought him to Tokyo to live. The
group of islands became an integral part of Japan,
under the name of the Okinawa prefecture. When
in 1874 fifty-four Loo Chooans were wrecked on
Formosa and murdered, satisfaction was demanded
from Peking. The answer was given that eastern
Formosa was not under Chinese jurisdiction. The
Japanese sent a detachment, with modern uni-
forms and weapons, under General Saigo, to pun-
ish the head-hunters and build roads and houses.
The Chinese ordered them off, but the Tokyo gov-
ernment refused, unless both indemnity and a
guarantee that the islands should be ruled effi-
ciently, after the manner of civilization, were
given. During the negotiations, Okubo, the Jap-
anese minister, appeared in Peking, He refused
to treat on any basis but that of international law,

236 CHINA'S STORY

a copy of which he presented to the Tsung-li
Yamen. He would not recognize, or have anything
to do with, the Chinese notion of universal sover-
eignty. On the basis of the laws of nations, the
two governments entered into a peaceful arrange-
ment, the Chinese agreeing to pay five hundred
thousand taels to the Japanese. Concerning the
Riu Kiu Islands, China and Japan appointed
joint high commissioners to negotiate, but at the
last the Peking mandarins took the whole matter
out of their hands and put it under control of
the Board of Trade, an insult which Japan re-
membered in 1904.

Tung Chi, the young emperor, died childless on
January 12, 1875. Then the potency of a Chinese
woman behind the throne was again, as so often
before, illustrated. Nominally, women in China
are wholly subordinate in public. Within the
home and behind the curtain of the government,
they are often all-powerful. Their " rights " are
undefined, but their sovereignty is sure. By the
mother of the dead emperor, the infant son of
Prince Chun and nephew of the empress was
brought crying, out of his cradle, into the palace
and enthroned as Kwang Si, while she herself,
the dowager empress, became the real ruler of
China, swaying its destinies until 1908. Prince
Kung retired and Li Hung Chang became promi-
nent as adviser to the government.

When in 1874 Mr. A. E. Margary, of the Brit-

DUAL SOVEREIGNTY 237

ish consular service, was murdered in YunnaB,Sir
Thomas Wade endeavored to have a high manda-
rin punished, but the mystery was never cleared
up. Instead of war, a convention made at Chi
Fu opened two new ports of trade, and four
places on the Yang-tse, where foreign goods could
be landed, were named. An indemnity and other
matters calculated to produce mutual good-will
were agreed upon.

By the treaty of Livadia, in 1879, Kuldja, and
that signed at St. Petersburg in 1881, Hi was
restored to China after an indemnity of nine mil-
lion rubles had been paid to Russia.

Another blow at China's nearly defunct doctrine
of universal sovereignty was given by Japan
through Korea. Neither the French nor the Amer-
ican expedition had accomplished anything per-
manent, but in 1876, when the marines of a Jap-
anese surveying ship, mistaken for Frenchmen,
were fired upon from a Korean fort, they imme-
diately captured it. The Tokyo government sent
a peace expedition to Korea, which was exactly
like Commodore Perry's, in method and manner.
The government at Seoul agreed by treaty to open
three ports and allow Japanese to live in the coun-
try. Thus Japan gave to Korea her first recogni-
tion as an independent country.

As the Central Empire still considered the
Peninsular Kingdom a vassal, the court of Peking
looked with suspicion upon this action, and in

238 CHINA'S STORY

order to neutralize its influence virtually opened
this hermit kingdom to the world, by making a
commercial treaty with Korea and helping the
American envoy to do the same, just as if the
Koreans were an independent people. China, how-
ever, was still blinded by old traditions and
thought that she should retain control. In trying
to " save face," she paved the way for serious mis-
understandings in the future.

When a Korean mob, with stones and fire-arms,
attacked their legation, the Japanese fought their
way to the coast. The old regent, in Seoul, who
had fomented the disturbance, made the young
king, his own son, a prisoner, and connived at an
attempt to assassinate the queen Min.

Li Hung Chang at once dispatched a naval
squadron and a body of soldiers to Seoul. The up-
rising was put down, the king restored, and the
regent kidnapped and brought to Tien Tsin. A
Chinese officer, Yuan Shi Kai, like a British resi-
dent in India, was installed at the Korean court,
and a military force was kept in camp near Seoul.

In the negotiations which followed, a new port
was opened, Japan received an indemnity, and
kept a permanent guard of soldiers at the lega-
tion. These men, mostly deer-hunters of northern
Japan, were dead shots with the rifle. It boded ill
for the peace of the country, that besides a swag-
gering Chinese resident, with a large force of sol-
diers at his beck and call, there should be two

DUAL SOVEREIGNTY 239

companies of Japanese riflemen only too ready to
make use of their rivals as targets. Between the
two countries, as said before, no love is ever lost.

The oddity of dual sovereignty, that is, of one
state owing allegiance to two suzerains, a ser-
vant serving two masters, was again illustrated
in the Far East by Korea, China, while professing
to the world that Korea was an independent state,
virtually annexed " the Little Outpost Country,"
by including her within the Imperial Chinese Cus-
toms. In November, 1883, the Korean envoys,
escaping Chinese espionage, were brought across
the ocean in the American man-of-war, Trenton.
They visited Washington, met President Arthur,
and ratified the American treaty as if agents of a
sovereign state. In Europe, also, they had their
eyes still further opened concerning the advan-
tages of Western civilization, as compared with
that of China.

I had the honor of meeting in New York and
conversing, through the medium of the Japanese
language, with this embassy, headed by Ming
Yong Ik, the cousin of the queen. These pic-
turesque wearers of white gowns and big hats dif-
fered among themselves, some being eager pro-
gressives and others intense conservatives. Soon
after these Koreans reached Seoul, the so-called
Liberals seized the royal palace and beheaded the
king's ministers. By a trick, they secured the aid
of the Japanese legation guard. They expected to

240 CHINA'S STORY

reform tlte government at once and, in a few days
or weeks, change the ancient dress, habits, and
manners of their countrymen, and make Korea a
modern state.

The Chinese troops moved upon the palace to
rescue the king. The little hand of fewer than
two hundred Japanese were compelled to retreat,
which they did in good order. Their superb marks-
manship told terribly on the overwhelming num-
bers of the Korean mob and Chinese troops.
Their march continued to the seaport Chemulpo.
The Japanese legation was looted and burned.

The governments of Tokyo and Peking landed
fresh military reinforcements, but the danger of
another collision was averted by the convention of
Tien Tsin, made by the Marquis Ito and !Li Hung
Chang. It was agreed that neither China nor
Japan should attempt permanent occupation of
the peninsula. In case of disturbance, neither
should send troops without first giving notice to
the other. The soldiery of both countries was then
withdrawn.

CHAPTER XXII

OLD DOGMAS BLOWN TO ATOMS

THE Land of Morning Calm suffered so much
from her chronic disease of insurrection, caused
by the rapacity of her nobles and the weakness
of her central government, that it became a men-
ace to the peace of the East. The palace and
capital were under the control of the women of
the harem, the eunuchs, and the sorcerers rather
than of statesmen. The court and the govern-
ment were not separated. The little kingdom was
liable at any time to become a prey to the cupid-
ity of foreign nations, especially since the old-
fashioned European doctrine of " the balance of
power " had been extended even to the Far East.
When Russia made a move on the northern fron-
tier, Great Britain, in order to keep equilibrium,
seized Port Hamilton. Both these powers ignored
the wishes of the weakling, for the pigmy king-
dom was not able even to play the balance-beam
on the see-saw.

In China, under Li Hung Chang's directions,
Port Arthur and Wei-hai-wei, the sea gateways
to the capital, were fortified by German engineers,
and an army was drilled by German officers*
There was talk of Bismarck's buying Formosa,

242 CHINA'S STORY

where German marines first used the needle
gun.

In the Land of the Rising Sun the evolution
of a public school army, in which every man could
read and write, and assembled on modern lines of
organization, proceeded rapidly. Sooner or later
collision with the Chinese claim of universal
sovereignty was inevitable. In Russia's contempt
for the Japanese as an inferior race, as "yellow
monkeys," and her determination to control eastern
Asia by land and sea, Japan saw another imminent
danger. Meanwhile the islanders were very skep-
tical of China's ability, in case of war, either to
defend herself or to enforce neutrality.

Neither Russia nor Great Britain was alone in
readiness of aggression against weak China*
France also was full of the spirit of conquest.
Her agents had shown this by interfering in Jap-
anese affairs in 1868, offering to aid the reactionary
party, and also by invading Korea in 1870, as we
have seen.

It was clear that, sooner or later, the claim of
France to stand as the protector in Asia of the
Roman Catholic Christians would bring her into
collision with China, the church nation. Under all
dynasties, the Peking government clings to the
Confucian ritual as of divine origin. France hav-
ing gained so great a point in diplomacy in shield-
ing native Chinese Christians, it remained now to
find some vulnerable point in China's " face." This

OLD DOGMAS BLOWN" TO ATOMS 243

the French did in Annam, just as the Germans did
later in Shantung in 1897.

France had failed to colonize America, but as
early as 1715 the Roman form of Christianity was
introduced by French missionaries in Annam.
With success came difficulties between the con-
verts and other natives. Some French priests were
murdered. France interfered, and a treaty was
made. When in 1858 the King of Annam would
not fulfill the promised terms, a French fleet de-
stroyed some forts at Hue, the capital, and took
Saigon. In 1864 Cochin China was ceded to
France, becoming a French colony.

After the Franco-Prussian War France entered
upon a commercial crusade, hoping by this means
to recoup the losses by war in Europe. Something
like the spirit of filibustering that disturbed the
United States in the days of Presidents Fillmore
and Pierce, when Cuba, Mexico, and Nicaragua
were invaded by private bands of adventurers
from the United States, broke out in France. The
great prize in view was the possession of the trade
routes to Yunnan, which the British also were ex-
pecting to gain through Burma. Hanoi, the cap-
ital of Tong King, was the point of attack. The
French hoped to gain this province and build rail-
ways into China proper. Langson, a town eighty
miles distant and near the frontier of Yunnan, was
to be the prize of French strategy.

The King of Annam appealed to the Chinese

244 CHINA'S STORY

Emperor for protection, but ten years of negotia-
tion failed to yield satisfaction either to Peking
or to Paris. Meanwhile the Annamese king hired
Chinese volunteers, or irregular troops, called the
Black Flags. When the French threatened an
attack upon them, Marquis Tseng in Paris gave
notice that this would mean war. As neither China
nor France wanted this, a conference was held at
Tien Tsin. Yet while tortoise - slow China, then
the land without nerves or telegraphs, crawled,
not having learned the value of time, the French
leaped like a greyhound. The Peking authorities
forgot or neglected to notify their troops either as
to the time of their withdrawal, or of the proposed
French occupation of Langson. In this era of tele-
grams, orders from Europe were received over
night. When in 1884 the French moved to oc-
cupy the places named, they were repulsed. Paris
at once charged Peking with treachery, but the
Chinese claimed that the French, no date hav-
ing been specified, were in too much of a hurry,
and were equally breakers of good faith.

Admiral Courbet, to whom a monument was
unveiled in Formosa in 1910, was a stalwart up-
holder of French interests. He bombarded Keel-
ung in Formosa, and then appeared before Foo
Chow on the mainland. Before the Chinese sus-
pected his purpose, it being a time of peace, he
was inside the Min or Pearl River and in the rear
of the Chinese forts and fleet. Receiving orders

OLD DOGMAS BLOWN TO ATOMS 245

by telegram from Paris, lie summoned both to
surrender and was refused. The French, then the
best artillerists in the world, opened fire and in a
few minutes destroyed both forts and fleet. Cour-
bet returned to Formosa, took Keelung, and occu-
pied it. In Tong King, however, the Black Flags
were more than a match for their enemies, and
the French had to retreat from Langson.

Such a war had in it neither glory nor profit
to either party. To France it was frightfully
costly. By the treaty of June 9, 1885, matters
were left very much as before, except that China
was again called on to pay an indemnity of ten
million taels. After other experiences, as with
Japan in 1894-95, and with the powers in 1900,
China found it cheaper, as Japan had already
done, to arm and fight, than to trust to the honor
of nations, whether Christian or pagan. It was
plain that the sons of Han could face their foes,
white or brown, if they could be properly armed
and led.

The humiliating experiences of the Chinese
still further opened their eyes. Men must go down
into a well if they would see the reality of stars
during daylight hours. As in every other case of
China's collision with Western powers, reforms
followed, and in 1886 a navy was formed. The
northern squadron of modern steel battleships and
cruisers, built in England and Germany, was in use
by 1890. China was not yet enough of a nation, or

246 CHINA'S STOBY

sufficiently unified, to have all the national ships
under one head. The southern squadron was put
under local officials in the south, with headquarters
at Foo Chow, Captain Lang of the British fleet
in command ; but the inevitable misunderstand-
ing, or quarrel, concerning the relative rank and
authority of foreigner and native came in due
time*

The Peking government felt the necessity of
learning the news of the world quickly, and the
short telegraph line between Tung Chow and
Yunnan was extended to Peking. China's nervous
system was thus improved. Of old she had been
compared to an alligator, the head of which, if a
pin was stuck into its tail, would only after some
minutes know what had happened. Nothing of
the celerity of the dragon, which she bore on her
yellow flag, marked her movements. The actual
creature in diplomacy seemed too long in trying to
swallow the sun.

From being a boneless, nerveless giant, China
was becoming more like a normal man, with a
prospect of being something of an athelete, and
instantly responsive. In old days, a war in one
province was of so little concern to another, that
thousands of men might be slaughtered by foreign-
ers at one end of the empire without arousing
much feeling in other provinces. It did not occur
to Chinese in the interior that things done at the
seashore concerned them also. Kace pride did not

OLD DOGMAS BLOWN TO ATOMS 247

mean patriotism. Without newspapers, telegraphs,
railways, and public schools, the Chinese could not
become a body politic, sensitive in every part of
its frame. The inollusk must become vertebrated.

This evolution, into a type of political structure
with a backbone, was rapidly promoted by events.
The customs service, organized all over the em-
pire under the supervision of Sir Robert Hart,
helped greatly the cause of national unity; yet
without representation of the people in the central
government, there was little hope of rapid progress.
So long as merit or blame rested wholly with the
emperor or his servants the people felt no respon-
sibility. Some attempt was made to create a na-
tional consciousness and also to improve and re vise
the civil service examinations. Mathematics were
introduced, but the old-fashioned scholars opposed
the innovation and nullified the expected benefit.

The woes of a land whose prince was a child
seemed to have surcease for a while, when, in 1887,
the boy emperor came of age. In 1889 he married,
and to the joy of an army of menials and con-
tractors, who fatten on the tax-paying people, over
$5,000,000 were lavished on the wedding cere-
monies. The dowager empress now retired, and
in 1891 the young emperor gave audience to the
foreign ministers. Yet though many rejoiced at
this, the coming of the new kingdom, which for-
eigners waited for, still tarried. Evidences of the
literary bigotry yet to be overcome were seen in

248 CHINA'S STOEY

the opposition of the men of letters in the Yang-
tse valley to the proposed reforms in the exami-
nations. The anti- foreign spirit of the soldiers
was also pronounced, Honan heing the centre of
opposition. The most horribly blasphemous pic-
tures and tracts against the Christian religion, and
the old story of kidnapping children and using
their eyes for chemicals easily believed in a coun-
try where science was not taught were widely
circulated.

In many places riots broke out, Christian
churches were wrecked, and two foreigners were
killed. The Peking government, too weak to fer-
ret out the culprits, evaded the task and paid
money, which the foreigners too readily received.
The emperor issued an edict, saying some good
things about the religion of the missionaries and
their motives and aims. The local magistrates were
to protect the property and lives of foreigners.
There was as yet, however, no real religious free-
dom granted, and the seed of troubles still re-
mained.

While China's chronic diseases, corruption in
the government, favoritism of the mandarins, and
love of falsehood, still persisted, there was little
hope of genuine reform. No machinery of iron,
wood, or stone has ever been devised that can make
men virtuous. Because the Chinese government
spent plenty of money in buying ships, weapons,
and ammunition from foreigners, it was supposed

OLD DOGMAS BLOWN TO ATOMS 249

by them that China was "awakening," and Li
Hung Chang was liberal-minded. Such a showy
policy pleased all lovers of material progress, for
arsenals were built and young men trained in the
navy and army.

At Yokohama, in 1873, I met Dr. Yung Wing,
who, brought to Massachusetts by Dr. 8. R.
Brown in 1847, won prizes and graduated from
Yale College. He had orders from Peking to
take sixscore youths to America to be educated.
They carne to New England and were making
excellent progress. The conservatives in Peking,
however, feared that these lads might become too
American, human, and modern, and the boys
were all recalled after a few months. Those who
hope for reform, even if they begin in their boy-
hood, must expect to count a good many gray
hairs on their heads, and probably lose even these,
before China is fully modernized. We must ex-
pect reaction from time to time, for the course from
old disease to perfect health is never a straight
one.

Again the Central Empire's ancient claim of
exclusive sovereignty proved her undoing and
humiliation, when unreformed China came into
collision with new Japan. By piercing the ele-
phant-like crust of conservatism, the logic of
events hastened the day of reconstruction. In
Korea, the weak spot of the Far East, one of the
chronic southern insurrections broke out early

250 CHINA'S STORY

in 1894, this time led by the head of the Tong
Haks, who were followers of Oriental culture as
opposed to Western ideas. Unable to repress the
uprising, the pro-Chinese party in Seoul applied
for help. The Peking government, violating the
Li-Ito treaty, sent into Korea a force of two thou-
sand soldiers first, and then gave notice to Tokyo,
saying that Korea was " Our vassal state." At
once the Mikado's government sent a larger force
to Korea under strict discipline, and notified Pe-
king that any further despatch of Chinese troops
would be an act of war.

Despite this warning, China chartered the Brit-
ish transport Kow Shing, and put on board eleven
hundred men. Escorted by two Chinese men-of-
war, she was met by Captain (afterwards Ad-
miral) Togo, in the steel cruiser Naniwa. Know-
ing the treaty had been violated, Togo signaled
to the Kow Shing to surrender or to go to a
Japanese port as a prize of war. The Chinese
soldiers would neither yield nor let the foreign
officers off the ship. Togo kept his signals flying
four hours. He then ran up the red flag, and sunk
the transport with a broadside. He was justified
by the verdict of international law.

War was now declared from both Tokyo and
Peking, the document of the Mikado being in the
temperate language of civilized nations, while that
from Peking was violent, abusive, and boastful,
echoing the ancient notions of Chinese statecraft*

OLD DOGMAS BLOWN TO ATOMS 251

The real kernel of the whole matter was that
China, despite her solemn treaties, had not yet,
either in regard to Riu Kin, Formosa, or Korea,
sincerely accepted international law, and in now
flaunting her doctrine of universal sovereignty,
gave the first provocation. The Tong Hak insur-
rection and all the incidents following it, includ-
ing the murder of the Korean reformer, Kim Ok
Kiun, in Shanghai, and the transportation of the
corpse in a Chinese warship to be delivered to
the Seoul government for savage mutilation, were
mere matters of occasion, but were not causes.
There was no hope for Japan, or for peace, so
long as China held to a doctrine that nullified all
her treaty promises.

Two Asiatic nations now confronted each other
in war, one having but a tenth part of the popu-
lation, area, and resources of the other ; the dis-
crepancy and contrast being so great as to recall
the conflict of David and Goliath. One was in-
closed in obsolete panoply, the other wielded ex-
pertly its weapons. Japan had an army educated
in the public schools, inflamed with patriotism,
led by officers filled with the noblest ideals of
loyalty, masters of modern science, and backed
by helpful women fully as intelligent as the men.
Moreover, Japan went to war with a creditable
Hospital corps, including ships and hundreds of
trained nurses.

China's real army consisted of about thirty

252 CHINA'S STORY

thousand troops drilled in modern style, her north-
ern forts were modern and strong, and her steel
navy large, including battleships, while the Jap-
anese had only cruisers. There existed no regu-
lar provision for the treatment of the Chinese
sick and wounded, and the war equipment of most
of the new soldiers called out was medieval.

Those who knew the situation predicted, with
only ordinary foresight, what would happen, or,
as the writer declared, when the news of the war's
outbreak was first received : " There will be one
great battle at Ping Yang. The regular forces
of the Chinese will be beaten. After that the
Japanese will go through China as a kuife goes
through cheese."

The Mikado's soldiers gained their first victory
over the Chinese at Asan and won the battle at
Ping Yang. The Japanese sailors, with only
cruisers and no battleships, crippled the Chinese
fleet near the Yalu River mouth, five vessels
under the dragon flag being sunk, and the rest,
seven in number, put to flight. Korea was swept
clean of Chinese troops, and Marshal Yamagata
occupied southern Manchuria. After taking two
cities, he assaulted Port Arthur November 21,
capturing the stronghold which had been consid-
ered impregnable. General Oyama landed an-
other army and took the forts at Wei-hai-wei.

The Peking government sent two separate mis-
sions to Japan to treat for peace, but without

OLD DOGMAS BLOWN TO ATOMS 253

giving the envoys full power. After this incred-
ible piece of conceit, the war went on. The
Japanese blew up the Chinese battleships, turn-
ing the guns of the forts against the former
garrison. Admiral Tang committed suicide.

The court had disgraced Li Hung Chang, but
called him again to honor and sent him as peace
commissioner to Shimonoseki, where he was shot
at and wounded by one of those assassins so nu-
merous in Japan's history. On the 17th of April,
1895, a treaty was signed which declared the in-
dependence of Korea, ceded the Liao Tung penin-
sula, including Port Arthur, to Japan, opened five
new ports to trade, and required China to pay to
Japan within seven years an indemnity of two
hundred million taels.

This humiliating treaty was doubtless agreed to
by China in the hope that Eussia or the European
powers, by whose mutual jealousy and the play-
ing off of one against the other Peking had long
profited, would interfere. They did.

On the 9th of May, when in a little steam-tug
the two Japanese peace commissioners, not know-
ing how far the Chinese would keep faith, ap-
proached Chifu, where the ratifications were to
take place, the sight of the mighty allied fleet of
the three powers as against the little steam-tug
was ludicrous. It was like that of roaring wild
beasts about a dove.

Not alone Russia's big fleet, but all of the avail-

254: CHINA'S STORY

able Grerman and French war vessels in Asiatic
waters, had assembled in Chifu harbor, and their
gunners were firing blank cartridges, filling the
air and heavens with smoke to overawe two men
in a little tug. Uniting against Japan in her ex-
hausted condition, the three great powers forced
her to give up her foothold on the continent and
accept, instead, Formosa and the Pescadores, with
a bonus of thirty million taels. Unable at once,
without a great navy, to fight the three combined
nations, the Japanese accepted the situation, and
a supplementary treaty was signed at Peking,
November 7, 1895. Japan immediately invested
the extra money in building the best battleships
afloat, and at once began preparations to fight
Russia, whose motives and purposes had been
already foreseen in Tokyo.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE BOXER RIOTS

HER exorbitant creditors now pressed China,
and as usual she had to pay all the bills. To Rus-
sia she yielded the right to extend her Siberian
railway through Manchuria to Vladivostok, with
branch lines to Mukden and Port Arthur. The
French were promised that railways in China when
built should meet theirs in Tong King. Germany
was given fresh mining and railway privileges in
Shantung.

The burdens of the war fell upon the poor peo-
ple, who were goaded almost to universal rebellion
by the new exactions laid upon them. One of the
worst results was the pitiable exposure of China's
military weakness, the great world, as usual, hav-
ing been misled by notions of bulk. It was the
old case of Jack and the Giant. Hercules, with
only the head of a cocoanut, is no match against
brains and nimbleness, whether of sprightly boys
or intelligent princesses.

Foreign powers now seemed to rely less on diplo-
macy and reason, and more and more on force and
brutality. One British author even wrote a book
entitled "The Break-up of China." It was some-
thing like that of another British historian, whose

256 CHINA'S STORY

premature work was entitled a " History of Fed-
eral Government from the Amphictyonic Council
to the Disruption of the United States of Amer-
ica."

Beneath diplomacy and war there lie other mo-
tives than political amhition, earth-hunger, martial
glory, or love of conquest, chiefly commercial.
Trade wars for markets are often provoked to
enrich a few men at the expense of the many.
Economic conditions in America forced European
action. As soon as steel could be produced in
Pittsburg cheaper than in Europe, the United
States not only ceased to be a market for this
metal, but became an exporter, and the Europeans
saw that they must seek new customers. At once
they made strenuous efforts to get at China's un-
told wealth of iron and coal.

To find both market and fields of profitable in-
vestment is the motive underlying most of West-
ern statecraft concerning the Far East. China's
mineral wealth exceeds that of ten Pennsylvanias.
Within four months from America's economic in-
dependence of Europe, Germany, Great Britain,
France, Russia, and even Italy made a rush to be
in at the supposed " break-up of China." When
on November 1, 1897, two Roman Catholic mission-
aries from Germany were murdered by robbers in
Shantung, Germany landed troops, drove Chinese
soldiers out of the forts, demanded indemnity, with
mining and railway privileges, and a lease of

THE BOXER RIOTS 257

Kiao Chau for ninety-nine years. Helpless China
agreed.

Russia demanded a Grerman-like lease of both
Port Arthur and Talieu Wan, and at once began
building a great city of empty houses called Dalny.
At this the Japanese were not surprised. As soon
as the Mikado's soldiers evacuated Wei-hai-wei,
Great Britain took a twenty-five years' lease of
the place, and in 1899 secured more land back of
Hong Kong also. Italy sent a warship to demand
San-men Bay, but was refused. Europeans who
had been making new maps and dividing China up
into " spheres of influence " wondered what was
the new power that had stiffened China's back to
refuse further vivisection. They soon found that
the empress dowager had returned to power.

Meanwhile the Chinese people, looking at these
acts of European governments as spoliations, be-
came more embittered than ever against foreign-
ers. In addition to the staggering burdens of tax-
ation imposed under the form of indemnities, the
so-called Christian nations were vivisecting their
country. Now began the interior activities of the
secret society of United Righteous Strikers, called
later, by foreigners, the Boxers,

Hurricane reform is as dangerous as the dry-
rot of conservatism. In 1898, under the influence
of a patriot, Kang Yu Wei, the young emperor
Kwang Si began the issue of edicts of reform,
which> had they been patiently carried out, would

258 CHINA'S STORY

have made a new life for China. The civil service
examinations were entirely changed, so as to bring
the curriculum into harmony with modern needs.
The government was to be reorganized. A system
of public schools on Western models was to be
established, and the right to petition the throne
was to be given to all officers throughout the em-
pire. Ardent and radical reformers rejoiced at the
action of the young emperor and foresaw a new
era.

Looking at this wonderful programme from the
Western point of view, it seemed right and prom-
ising. The motives of the reformers appeared to
be pure and their proceedings righteous. The dawn
of the new day was widely heralded.

From the Chinese point of view, however, es-
pecially from that of the Court in Peking, the
whole situation and the purposes of the reformers
were interpreted differently. The Conservatives
saw in the new movement the machinations of
traitors, and the subversion of ancient customs.
They discerned also a plot to kidnap and remove
the empress dowager.

In most old-fashioned Oriental schemes to se-
cure unanimity of opinion, even as in some in-
stances in the West, the removal of the heads of
opponents was part of the proceedings. The con-
servatives, led by the empress, struck a blow for
their own lives, and, as they believed, for the sta-
bility of the empire. With military force in reserve,

THE BOXER KIOTS 259

the empress dowager, on the 22d o September,
1898, seized the person of the young emperor and
made him sign a paper, in which it was stated that
owing to ill-health the stock pretext in Asia
he was obliged to drop the reins of government.
The same lady who had lifted the baby, crying,
out of his cradle, now drove the grown man off
the throne.

The dowager empress became regent of the
empire, and the reformers were hunted out and
banished or beheaded. With the ultra-conserva-
tives around her and now in power, she, in the
emperor's name, by the decree of September 26,
negatived the proposed reforms. The spirit of the
government became more anti-foreign. Secret plots
to rid China of all aliens, whose modern machin-
ery, both political and commercial, threatened the
very existence of the hoary empire, were undoubt-
edly encouraged at court. Lest the reform spirit
might break out afresh and the men of new mind
rally round the young emperor, the empress dow-
ager compelled her nephew to issue a decree on the
Chinese New Year's Day, January 31, 1900, an-
nouncing that he had abdicated. Despite all pro-
tests, native and foreign, which only confirmed
her purpose, she had her own way. A reign of ter-
ror against all reformers was instituted. Prince
Tuan's son, a little boy, was made heir apparent.

In all these proceedings the empress was prob-
ably actuated only by one dominating motive,

260 CHINA'S STORY

to prevent what foreigners had proclaimed " the
break-up of China," and to save her country and
people. There were too many eagles gathered to-
gether waiting for the expected corpse. She post-
poned the feast. The language of one of her de-
crees, like a window looking to the sun, lets in a
great light upon the situation. It was as noble an
address to her people as was Queen Elizabeth's to
Englishmen in face of the Spanish Armada :

" Let no one think of making peace, but let
each strive to preserve from destruction and spo-
liation by the ruthless hand of the invader his
ancestral home and graves."

This was the Chinese woman's way of striking
back at the spoilers, who under threat of battle-
ships and armies of invasion had forced China to
let them occupy her soil, and who ruthlessly dis-
ordered China's ancient industrial system.

The hundreds of thousands of rice-winners
thrown out of employment made good material
for agitators to work upon. The Buddhist priests
used diligently their opportunity to organize a
campaign against the foreign religion. The con-
servative Manehus at court, maddened by their re-
peated humiliations at the hands of the Euro-
peans, were ready to utilize any movement, even
apparently anti-dynastic, that promised to rid their
country of the aliens. In their treatment of China
and principles of diplomacy, these Europeans
seemed to defy Heaven and all righteousness.

THE BOXER RIOTS 261

In the Confucian province of Shantung, a so-
ciety had been formed whose original purpose was
to expel the foreigners Manchus. They were
the Know-Nothings of the Middle Kingdom. As
European aggression increased, these men attrib-
uted the woes of China to the misrule of the Tar-
tar dynasty in Peking, and to the cowardice of
their rulers in yielding to the Westerners. Because
these " Fisters " were so anti-foreign in spirit, the
Manchus opposed to reform were able to turn them
to their own purpose.

Their name, composed of three Chinese char-
acters meaning Righteousness, Unity, and Fists,
may be translated Harmonious Holy Pugilists, or
Righteous United Fisters, or Strikers, or, in short,
Boxers. Armed for the most part only with arrows,
swords, and spears, they began to drill in bodies
during the autumn of 1899. Few were accustomed
to guns and cartridges, and no large number of
them ever mastered the use of firearms. They
knew nothing of the tactics of real soldiers, or of
the idea of unity of operations in a large army.
This fact afterwards proved the salvation of the
besieged in Peking. Misled largely by Taoist and
Buddhist priests, the Boxers depended on charms
and incantations, believing themselves invulner-
able to the bullets of the aliens, who, they im-
agined, could be hypnotized and their missiles
rendered harmless.

From first to last the Boxer uprising was no-

262 CHINA'S STORY

thing but a riot on a large scale, with which at
first the Peking mandarins were unable to cope.
Happily the authorities at Washington, learning
this fact promptly, were saved from foolish diplo-
macy. No regular soldiers fired a hostile shot, nor
did the Chinese government order, or let loose, its
army against the Westerners, until the allied
Europeans and Japanese the Americans refus-
ing to join in the " entangling alliance " had
wantonly begun war against a friendly nation by
firing upon and destroying the Chinese forts at
Taku.

The Boxers struck first at the native Christians,
because they identified these as " foreigner-Chi-
nese," who were supposed to approve of the doings
of Europeans, the common people not being able
to discriminate between the governments and the
missionaries, or the differing motives of the vari-
ous foreigners. With what looked like the impend-
ing division of the empire among aliens, neither
the local mandarins nor those in the central gov-
ernment were zealous in punishing the rioters,
who were thus made bold to other excesses.

Furthermore, since it was possible to believe
anything in old China, both the imperial troops
and the local magistrates were terrified, thinking
that the Boxers possessed magical powers and
arts. In Shantung and northern China, therefore,
the mandarins shrunk from strong measures. In
the centre and south, where a vigorous preventive

THE BOXER RIOTS 263

attitude was assumed by province governors, few
or no symptoms of the Boxer madness manifested
themselves, and foreigners were safe. In its ac-
tual outbreak, in 1900, the Boxer movement was
wholly a northern affair.

The missionaries, living among the people and
understanding their language, had long before
warned the legations of their danger, but their
words were not taken seriously. As a matter of
fact, few of the diplomatists had been long in
China, or knew the country or people well. Hap-
pily, however, convinced of their critical situation,
they secured by telegrams several hundred marines
and sailors, sent June 8, from the warships. Then
they were isolated from the world, for the wires
were cut and the rails, rolling stock, and stations
of the railway destroyed. The first property in-
jured by the Boxers was that supposed by them
to have taken the rice out of their mouths.

All the foreigners in the capital and the native
Christians, making common cause, assembled in
the legation quarter. This, fortified under the
directions of Rev. F. D. Game well, the American
missionary-engineer, was soon surrounded by the
rioters. So far, however, not one national sol-
dier had fired a shot, for this was a riot, which
the Peking government was unable to quell. In
the Imperial Council some mandarins were only
reasonably friendly to foreigners, while others
were stalwart against the idea of injuring them,

264 CHUSTA'S STORY

breaking the faith of treaties, or showing any
sympathy with the rioters. But their strong arm,
of righteousness was paralyzed by the action of
the allies in wantonly making war on China, as
we shall see.

Knowing the awful danger of their countrymen
beleaguered in Peking, the British Admiral Sey-
mour and the American Captain McCalla quickly
organized a force of a thousand men. These,
hastily equipped and poorly provisioned, reached
Tien Tsin June 10. Beyond this point the rails
were torn up. It was slow work repairing the
railway, and the rioters were swarming around
them, but they bravely fought their way forward
until provisions gave out, and they were obliged
to retreat. Now began their surprises and terrible
disasters.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE ALLIES MAKE WAE ON CHINA

ON the advance, not one shot had been fired
by any but the rioters, but on coming back, from
the morning of June 18, the Chinese soldiers in
uniform were firing at Admiral Seymour's force
from all sides. In Peking, the Japanese chancellor
of legation on June 11, and the German ambassa-
dor, Baron von Ketteler, on June 20, were killed.

What was the cause of the trouble, and what
were the reasons for this apparent change, in that
the enemy, being now of the regular army under
orders of the government, took the place of the
rioters? For this action of the Chinese regulars
the commanders of the warships of all the foreign
powers, then in Chinese waters, except those of
the United States, under Rear Admiral Louis
Kempff, were wholly responsible, as an account
of their action shows.

At the mouth of the Pei-ho River leading to
Peking, and near the Taku forts which guarded
the entrance, the warships of eight allied nations,
the United States, Great Britain, Russia, Ger-
many, France, Italy, Austria, and Japan, were
lying. There was no real necessity of any hostility

266 CHINA'S STOKY

against these forts, but the foreign admirals on
June 16 demanded their surrender or evacuation.

The American admiral Louis Kempff, trained
under Farragut, showed himself the bravest of the
brave by refusing to use force and shed blood
when China and the United States were at peace.
The Peking government was embarrassed with a
riot on a large scale. It was another insurrection,
and threatened to be as great as the Tai Ping up-
rising. Admiral Kempff had received no orders
from his superiors at Washington. He had to act
according to his judgment as a good American,
and his conscience was clear. The unbroken tra-
dition binding the United States and China was
that of peace. There had never been war or real
hostilities between the two countries, the affair
at the Canton forts in 1856 being an episode with-
out meaning. Washington had laid down the prin-
ciple and made the precedent against entangling
alliances with European nations, and this policy
had been scrupulously followed by every presi-
dent. To fire on these Taku forts was a wanton
act of needless war.

Admiral Kempff refused to join in the lawless
act. He warned his colleagues that 'their pro-
cedure would unite the Chinese against all for-
eigners, and immediately render the situation at
Tien Tsin and Peking more dangerous. He pleaded
in vain. Kempff was the kind of man needed to
represent the United States in the Far East. Of

LEGATION STREET IN FRONT OF THE BUILDING OF THE NATIONAL CITY
BANK OF NEW YORK, LEGATION QUARTER, PEIPM

THE ALLIES MAKE WAR ON CHINA 267

physical valor and brute force we have had enough.
Our race does not lack in these. Of moral cour-
age, like that of Washington, Perry, and Harris,
for example, we have never had as yet enough,
and ever need more.

The ultimatum was served at night. It de-
manded the surrender by two A. M. Bravely and as
a true patriot the commander of the forts refused,
and notified his government at Peking. The
Chinese nobly defended their flag and country
for six hours. Then a shell from the Algerine, of
the British navy, blew up the main magazine, and
the fort was in ruins, on June 17,

The first shot fired at the Taku forts united all
China against the hated foreigner. It was worth
everything to the anti-foreign mandarins in the
government council at Peking. It was exactly what
they were waiting and hoping for. It fully jus-
tified their attitude. The Chinese government
immediately declared war against the invaders,
and the Tsung-li Yamen, according to the laws of
the world, served notice on the foreign ministers
to leave Peking within twenty-four hours, guar-
anteeing safe conduct. The Boxers were now
recognized as militia and helpers of the govern-
ment against the men who had declared war upon
China.

Meanwhile the rioters, now incited from Pe-
king, proceeded with their murderous work, de-
stroying the property of the native Christians and

268 CHINA'S STORY

of the missions. Nearly seven-score missionary
people lost their lives, but this number, great as
it was, was only a fraction of the loss suffered
by their Chinese fellow believers, of whom many
thousands were put to death, and for none of
their losses were the living compensated.

Now sounded the call for an allied army for
the rescue of the legations. Eight nations re-
sponded. Japan sent the splendid Hiroshima
division, making a total of twenty-one thousand
of her men on ship and shore, and mostly veter-
ans. Russia soon had eight thousand soldiers on
the ground.

The United States, however, was the first to
have, with twenty-eight hundred men under Gen-
eral A. R. Chaffee, a definite policy of action, and
was the only country that did. Its theory of
action, based on over a hundred years of consist-
ent friendship, and especially upon the action of
Admiral Kempff, was this : China was a friendly
power, ever at peace with the United States. The
Boxer movement was a riot on a large scale.
After relieving their citizens, insuring protection,
and receiving indemnity, the Americans would
leave the country. They had no business to remain
after the diplomatic settlement was over. China
must save herself. In the American view, there
was to be no break-up of China. At Washington,
during the siege of the legations, acting on the
Chinese minister Wu's petition, Mr. John Hay,

THE ALLIES MAKE WAR ON CHINA 269

Secretary of State, had refused to believe that the
foreigners in Peking had been massacred. Pa-
tience was rewarded and a telegram received in
Washington from our minister, Mr. Conger.

Of the diplomacy of President McKinley and
Secretary Hay, the action of Admiral Kempff,
in maintaining the American peace policy with
China, formed the basis. This insistence on the
integrity of China was in direct opposition to the
" break-up " theory.

Now began the march to Peking. Had the Jap-
anese been allowed to go forward at once and
alone, they could easily have performed the work
without aid, and the legations would have been
relieved a month sooner than they were. The cos-
mopolitan relief force did not start for Peking
until August 4. Before this, Tien Tsin, now
strongly fortified and garrisoned by Chinese reg-
ulars, must be taken. The first assault of the allies
failed. Then the Japanese blew up a gate and
resistlessly stormed walls and city. After bloody
fighting, the Chinese retreated. In this campaign,
the American naval force, under Admiral Kempff,
and the Ninth U. S. Infantry, were especially
active, but the brave Colonel Liscum was slain.

On the hot and dry march to Peking, the Jap-
anese, with modern appliances, including filtered
water, were in the advance, but had to wait for
the Russians, who averaged only four miles a day.
These selected the best villages, wells, and camp-

270 CHINA'S STORY

ing places. In their dust, the Americans marched
next, selecting such sites and drinking water as
might be left. The English forces (including a
drilled regiment of Chinese from Wei-hai-wei),
German marines, Italians, Austrians, etc., fol-
lowed. Of the entire host, the Japanese lost the
fewest men by sickness in proportion to their
numbers. In this international school of war
many lessons were learned, the Mikado's men
losing all fear of the Czar's soldiers after seeing
them on the march and in camp.

Meanwhile in Peking there could be no unity
in the councils of the regular Chinese and the
Boxers. Furthermore, some of the best men in
the government, though discouraged at the treach-
ery of the foreigners in firing on the Taku forts,
tried by warnings to restrain excesses. Hence the
safety of the besieged. Many buildings near the
legations were fired in the hope of burning out
the foreigners. In the defense the American
marines, brave, alert, and efficient, covered them-
selves with glory and greatly aided the prospects
of holding out. The native Christians were con-
tinually at work on fortification or repair.

The advance of the rescuing expedition reached
Peking August 14, and the city was taken next
day. As the rescuers entered, the court and em-
press fled, and the seat of government was set up
in the west at Sian Fu.

For the missionaries and diplomatists there

THE ALLIES MAKE WAR ON CHINA 271

were rescue, food, and certain indemnity ; but
what of the native Christians exiled from their
homes and fields, of which only vestiges remained?
Where was even food to come from ? In such a
crisis, brave men, like the American Dr. Ament,
went out into the open country. According to jus-
tice and immemorial custom in China, he com-
pelled the village elders, who had connived at, or
encouraged the Boxers, to furnish supplies of
food. From the confiscated property in Peking,
money was obtained to support the native Chris-
tians until they could be sent home. This action
was misunderstood and maligned at home by a
popular author. He " caught a Tartar " in attack-
ing Dr. Ament, who showed the true facts.

Admiral KempfE, the hero who had vindicated
the noblest American traditions, instead of being
rewarded as Admiral Dewey, for example, had
been, received no thanks, and was relegated to
routine duty in the Philippines. Yet on his right-
eous action was based the diplomacy which fol-
lowed, in which the United States led the way*
This was because our State Department had a
definite policy, the policy inaugurated by George
Washington and fixed by over a hundred years'
precedents given by American merchants, ex-
plorers, and missionaries, whose theory and prac-
tice were the exact reverse of those of other West-
ern peoples.

In Europe, the traditional idea concerning the

272 CHINA'S STORY

countries of Asia was that they exist to be con*
quered and made part of European empires. At
the antipodes of such a notion, which was based
on the exploded dogma of the divine right of
kings and the supposed privilege of the white race
to dominate all others, was the American doctrine
that Asian humanity does not exist for conquest or
possession, but that her peoples are to be treated
as brothers, to be taught, helped, and healed.
Such a creed had been exemplified for over a cen-
tury by Americans. President McKinley, Admiral
Kempff, Secretary John Hay, and Elihu Root, as
servants of the American people, merely declared
to the world and registered the verdict which had
long ago been given by American commerce,
Christianity, and diplomacy.

In the looting of Peking, the savagery that lurks
even in the civilized nations of Christendom broke
loose, the Russians, French, and Germans showing
especially relapse into needless slaughter of inno-
cent people and brutal treatment of women. The
main body of the Germans arrived after the real
work of rescue was over. The Europeans, indeed
all except the Americans, recognized Count von
Waldersee as Commander-in-chief of the so-called
" punitive expeditions,*' that devastated the coun-
try in the name of God. Prince Ching and Li
Hung Chang, as plenipotentiaries, acted with the
foreign diplomatic agents at the council table.

The punishment of China was made so severe

THE ALLIES MAKE WAR ON CHINA 273

that the American conscience revolted. Several of
the missionary societies refused to apply for or
receive indemnity* After all just claims of Amer-
ican citizens had been settled, the government at
Washington returned the unexpended remainder.
This fund was immediately invested by the Peking
government for the education of scores of Chinese
youth in America.

After many long sessions and the voting down
of many ridiculous propositions, the articles which
were signed secured the integrity of China, in-
demnity to foreigners to the amount of four hun-
dred and fifty million taels, but none to the
native Christians, the abolition of the Tsung-
li Yamen, and the creation of a state department
of foreign affairs, to rank above the Ministers of
State, the death penalty upon eleven princes or
mandarins named, the razing of the Taku forts,
prohibition of the importation of arms and war
material, provision for foreign guards at the capi-
tal, and the suspension of provincial examinations
in the Boxer districts for five years. Where Baron
von Ketteler was killed, a memorial structure was
built, and an imperial prince went in person to
Berlin and presented apologies to the Kaiser.

Again the poor people of China were called
upon to endure an increase of the already crush-
ing burdens of taxation, to pay within forty years
the foreigners' mulct.

At Arlington, near Washington, are the eloquent

274: CHINA'S STORY

tombs of Liscum and Reilly, who led our brave
soldiers in China. In Saint James Park, London,
is a statue in bronze of the English rescuers and
defenders, with bas-reliefs showing men of two
nations, British and .American, of the same race
and language, defending the legations. In better
days to come, the heroes who refuse to fight un-
justly will also be honored in enduring bronze.

CHAPTEE XXV

THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR: ITS RESULTS

WHILE the United States, at the very first
possible moment, kept faith and set a good ex-
ample in withdrawing the American troops, Russia
showed unmistakably her policy as old as Peter
the Great of securing frontage on the sea, with
a seaport open in winter. Baffled, after the Russo-
Turkish War, in her hereditary march on Con-
stantinople, by the firmness of Great Britain, she
now turned her energies into railroad building
eastward, and waited for a pretext that should
enable her to dominate Manchuria, absorb Korea,
humble Japan, and keep China in subservience.
So at least the imperialistic Russian newspapers
intimated.

When a Chinese general attacked some Cossacks,
one of these pretexts was availed of. In revenge,
the Russians drove a multitude of Chinese men,
women, and children from the city into the Amoor
River, slaughtering thousands of them. Another
pretext was the state of disorder in Manchuria, to
cure which, Russia insisted that it was necessary
to occupy large portions of the province with hex
military forces. She claimed from China, for hav-
ing assisted so largely in suppressing the Boxer

276 CHINA'S STORY

uprising, the right to lease Manchuria, occupy Port
Arthur, and, before she had people to occupy it,
build Dalny, a great city, with granite piers pro-
viding facilities for prospective trade by land and
sea. Yet all this time, and until 1904, beside mil-
itary and railway men, the number of Russian
subjects in Manchuria was not over one thousand.
Japan, whose interests were equally great, had on
the same soil at least ten thousand of her people
engaged in legitimate business.

Although Russia promised to evacuate Manchu-
ria by October 8, 1903, yet the only signs she
showed were those of remaining. Her building was
of the sort that meant permanent occupation.
Japan took the alarm and made protest. The
American government, considering that Manchu-
ria belonged to China, made a new treaty at
Peking, signed October 8, 1903, opening Mukden
and An Tung to trade. Russia, however, refused
to allow American consuls to enter.

While diplomacy was active between Tokyo
and St. Petersburg, the Russians increased their
army on land and gathered twenty-six war vessels
at Port Arthur. As Japan and Great Britain had
made an alliance, the island empire was able to
face Russia boldly, especially as her new steel
battleships were on their way from England, ready
for immediate use. When diplomacy ceased on
February 6, 1904, war at once began.

Those who knew the greatness of the Japanese

THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR 277

people and what Japan, with foreign help, had
been doing during the previous thirty-five years,
in educating her people, in renovating the moral
and physical condition of the masses, and in train-
ing an army and a navy, knew there was scarcely
the ghost of a chance of success for the Russians.
Bluster would never make up for good gunnery.
On sea, it would fare with the Muscovites little
better than it did with the Mongols. On land, a
public school army would face a mass of brave
but ignorant men. It was not a war of religion,
of creed, of color, or of race, but a struggle in
the interest of truth and justice. The field of
battle would be on China's soil and in Chinese
waters.

In three days, one third of Russia's navy was
damaged or destroyed. Within sixty hours, two
divisions of the Mikado's army were in Korea,
and in the first battle, on the Yalu Eiver, the
Russians were beaten. Then followed victory
after victory for the Japanese. Port Arthur, after
a long siege, surrendered January 1, 1905. On
March 10, after a three weeks' fight, Mukden,
the goal of the war, was entered. The second or
Baltic Russian fleet was destroyed on May 27.
Intelligence, science, the modern spirit, unity of
counsel, thorough preparation, first-class gener-
alship, honesty, and valor had prevailed over
medieval methods and spirit, division in coun-
cil, bureaucratic corruption, and poor leadership.

278 CHINA'S STOUT

IBy invitation of the President of the United.
States, peace plenipotentiaries from the Czar and
the Mikado met at Portsmouth, New Hampshire,
and agreed upon terms of peace. The treaty was
signed September 5, 1905. China was allowed no
voice in these deliberations, the results of which
so vitally affected her own interests. Southern
Manchuria became, for a time at least, virtually
a Japanese, and the central and northern part a
Russian, possession, and Korea was absorbed in
the Japanese Empire.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE REPUBLIC

THE key to the real history of awakened China,
since 1895, may perhaps be found in an imperial
autograph proclamation issued in May of that
year, which declared that " henceforth the truth
will be supported by the State." China's most
deeply seated disease was thus advertised. The
document itself laid open the interior weakness
and official corruption in the empire as frankly
as an enemy or alien could do it. China's most
prolific source of corruption is " face "; her great-
est need is "truth in the inward parts."

Over a half century ago, Dr. S. Wells Wil-
liams wrote : " The want of truth and integrity
weakens every part of the social fabric. China,
alone, of all the civilized nations of the earth, has
even now no national silver or gold coin and no
bank bills, the only currency being a miserable
copper-iron coin, so debased as not to pay coun-
terfeiters to imitate it." Japan has had a gold and
silver coinage since 1871, yet in popular notion,
commercial integrity is higher in the older than in
the younger country. Now, happily, China, awak-
ening to the reality of what was stated long ago,
seems more and more determined to rely on show-

280 CHINA'S STORY

ing the true inwardness of things than o hiding
or saving the " face " of them.

After the treaty of Portsmouth, in September,
1905, the Mikado's minister, Baron Komura, went
to Peking. China accepted the situation, realizing
that for generations to come that part of her ter-
ritory, most sacred in the history of the Manchu
dynasty and most promising in her future devel-
opment, must remain in the hands of Russia and
Japan, which would doubtless soon, by absorb-
ing Korea, become a continental power. As mat-
ter of fact, the once peninsular kingdom, with its
twelve million souls, was made a province of
Japan, under the name of Chosen (Morning Calm)
in August, 1910.

Nippon and Muscovy began in earnest to develop
trade and railways in Manchuria. The former
aimed to connect the Russian and Chinese sys-
tems with those in Korea, so that with steamer
communication from Tsuruga to Fusan and Vla-
divostok, making a ferry of the Sea of Japan, she
would be in quick and easy touch with Europe.
Russia perfected her transatlantic lines of rail-
way. In 1910 the two peoples lately at war en-
tered into a compact of friendship, with mutual
purpose to maintain their rights in Manchuria.
They also rejected a proposition from Washing-
ton to have the railways on Chinese soil open to
international capitalization.

Soon after the conclusion of the Chino- Japanese

THE REPUBLIC 281

War, Yuan Shi Kai, who in Korea and at home
had made a reputation for energy and patriotism,
had been selected to do the work of creating a mod-
ern army, with uniform weapons, equipment, and
commissariat according to the best models. For
several years, and with great energy, Yuan gave
himself to this work until a creditable force of in-
fantry, cavalry, artillery, and engineers was organ-
ized, while many young men were sent to Europe
to study in its military schools. Later, through
one of the outbreaks at Court, between the various
struggling and conflicting parties, this mandarin
was deprived of his rank under the "face" of (im-
aginary) rheumatism and retired to private life,
but the work went on.

Although nearing the end of a long and arduous
life, the Empress Dowager now took up the policy
which Kuang Hsi advocated before the Boxer
risings, and undertook reforms with a zeal that
would have been surprising even in a younger
sovereign. From the Court at Peking down to the
petty officials in the provinces, attempts were
made to stop the abuses and the inefficiency which
were stirring the awakening people to discontent.
A commission was sent to the United States and
to Europe to study their forms of government.
The Court at Peking even promised that China
should have a constitution. Reform of the nation's
finances and laws were planned. In 1908, the old
Empress died, and also the Emperor; and little
Henry Pu-Yi, who in 1934 became the ruler of

282 CHINA'S STORY

Manchuria as a puppet of Japan, was the suc-
cessor. Pu-Yi being a mere infant, his father,
Prince Ch'un, ruled as regent in his stead. Under
the regency the nation drifted rapidly toward
democracy, without either strong leadership or
violent opposition from the regent.

In 1911 the stage of history was set for the
entrance of a great leader, and in the person of
Sun Yat Sen he appeared, to seize the hour. For
many years he had been preparing for this crisis,
had indeed been striving to bring it about. This
great prophet of a new era, to whose precepts
present-day leaders turn for authority and guid-
ance, was born near Canton, educated in an
Anglican school in Hawaii, and there converted to
Christianity. Later he was driven from his native
village for disfiguring temple images, and from
then until the fulfillment of his plans for China
his life palpitated with plots, fights, and wander-
ings which took in Macao, Japan, London, and
other lands in which his countrymen had settled.
Many of the Chinese overseas were men of wealth,
and gave generously to the cause to which Sun had
pledged himself.

The unrest which had been seething in the
Empire broke loose in October, 1911, when, pro-
voked by the intention of the Central Government
to take over railroads owned in the provinces,
citizens of Central China were led by agitators
to revolt. When the troops in Hankow deserted
to the revolutionists, the Manchu Court called

THE KEPUBLIC 283

Yuan Shi Kai to their aid. But it was too late to
stay the tide. After a few weeks of fighting, Yuan
told the Manchu Dynasty that it seemed best
for them to abdicate; and they not only took his
advice, but even put the future of the country in
his hands. In 1912 a congress composed of two
houses, which had previously chosen Sun Yat Sen
President of the Republic, now elected Yuan Shi
Kai in his place, Sun having withdrawn to bring
harmony between the factions of the North and
the South. Supported by the mandate of the ex-
piring dynasty and the vote of the revolting re-
publicans, backed by the strongest army in the
country, and recognized by the foreign powers,
Yuan Shi Kai's administration began with great
promise, and on the surface all augured well for
the future of the Republic.

It should be remembered, however, that when
China became a republic, the movement, as in
Japan's revolution of 1868, was largely one of stu-
dents and "intellectuals," the mass of the people
being but slightly enlightened or interested. New
Japan arose out of an agglomeration of feudal
units. China, that had abolished feudalism over
two thousand years before, was a conglomerate of
many countries, races, provinces, and communi-
ties, with few elements of political cohesion or
powers of articulation, though the social and cul-
tural bond was strong. The Chinese were ill-fitted
either to become a true nation or to form a modern
government. Though the name of a republic

234 CHINA'S STORT

might be chosen and even the American idea
of a striped flag significant of federal union
and the equality of each province, large or small,
in the national legislature yet for the multitu-
dinous units of local freedom, there were few ele-
ments of vital political union. One thinks rather
of a boneless giant or a monstrous jellyfish an
organism with only the smallest degree of articula-
tion. There existed an enormous mass of popula-
tion below and the few agitators and leaders above,
but the great middle term of a politically intelli-
gent public, which only education and experience
could slowly supply, was lacking.

The most formidable obstacle to concentration,
unity, or harmony, however, lay in the racial,
mental, and economic diversity between the North
and South such as Americans with Civil War
memories ought to be able to understand with
some degree of sympathetic clearness. The men
of the two sections are as different, in origin and
temperament, as may well be conceived, even
though called by one name and nominally of one
race. One thinks of the Celto-Frankish and Teu-
tonic peoples and their age-old wars. The South-
ern Chinese, in origin, are largely of Malay de-
scent, interested in the sea and accustomed to
spread into other countries. The Northern Chi-
nese are of Tartar and Manchu descent and men
of interior land interests. In physical appearance,
in mental processes, and in economic interests,
the men of these sections are almost as two na-

THE REPUBLIC ?S5

tions. The bond of the Chinese empire or repuLIh
is not political, but is almost wholly social and
one of culture.

Again, like the Japanese of 1868, the Southern-
ers were, in the main, men of progressive mind,
students, or those who had been abroad or under
foreign teachers. The Northerners, as a rule, were
the conservatives, holding to the old monarchical
forms and traditional ideas. In a large sense, here
was a struggle of democracy and new ideas against
aristocracy and tradition. There were great eco-
nomic factors, also, which influenced the estrange-
ment of these two sections.

Yuan Shi Kai soon showed that he was not the
man to reconcile these sectional differences. Hav-
ing a military education, never out of Asia, and
saturated with imperialism, Yuan could not brook
the interference of a legislature. His methods for
ridding himself of critics, rivals, and enemies
were those of the firing squad and the executioner's
axe. He filled the offices with his friends and tools,
and when the Congress made protest, Yuan, on
November 4, 1913, ordered the People's Party,
after branding its members as rebels, to be dis-
solved. This left the Congress without a quorum
and the southern provinces without representa-
tion. Yuan and the Northerners were now in
supreme power.

At Canton the discredited legislators formed a
government under the leadership of Sun Yat Sen.
Later, Li Yuan Hung was chosen President.

286 CHINA'S STORY

China was now in civil war. Roughly speaking,
the North was militaristic and the South republi-
can. Yuan, having abolished the Congress, now
surpassing the example, his model, of the Tai Wen
Kun of Korea, aspired to the throne. On Decem-
ber 1, 1915, he proclaimed a monarchy and fixed
the date of his coronation for the following Febru-
ary.

The death of Yuan Shi Kai, on June 15, 1916,
simplified the situation, but one more attempt was
made to restore the Manchu monarchy, on July 1,
1917, the boy-emperor reigning only six days. The
marching ef provincial armies towards Peking
caused a change and the Congress again as-
sembled on the basis of the constitution of 1912,
and in August proceeded to form a new constitu-
tion; but the age-old quarrels of North and South
continued. In August of the next year, 1918, Hsu
Shi Chang was chosen President to serve until
1923.

Just when wise men saw national bankruptcy
approaching and no outlet to their troubles, the
armistice in Europe seemed to open a way to
unity. At Shanghai, in the foreign settlement, the
Northerners and Southerners met, hoping to agree ;
but after months of debate, failed. Meanwhile,
Japan profited by the situation to strengthen her
power in China in every way. Political disin-
tegration increased. The Anfu Club was pro-
Japanese and strongly militaristic in sentiment.
The Chili group trusted more to a peaceful policy.

THE EEPUJBLIC 287

Both were in the North, but in 1920, the two
factions came to blows in Peking. The Anfu men,
being beaten, fled for shelter to the Japanese
legation. The Chili faction was now uppermost.

In the South also, the splitting process, on ac-
count of quarrels which were largely over distribu-
tion of spoil, went on. The game seemed to be one
for money and power, patriotism being more of a
theory than of actual practice. The armies were
personal, rather than national, or even provincial,
though in total these bodies of mercenaries num-
bered over a million. Thus China's resources were
wasted.

From 19& to 19&7, China was at the mercy of
several war lords, who with armies of mercenaries
staged sham battles, looted the larger cities and
squeezed " protection-money'* from the unhappy
merchants by methods similar to those of our
"racketeers." One after another these soldiers
controlled Peking and tried their hand at main-
taining order, forming cabinets, and issuing dema-
gogic manifestoes in which they posed as China's
virtuous protectors against other wicked gen-
erals. Meanwhile, the steady, toiling peasantry
chafed under the burden of supporting millions
of rag-tag vagrants who hovered about the very
indistinct line between soldiery and banditry.
The normal tide of trade slackened, and the
"likin" taxes on commerce between cities and be-
tween provinces became unbearable. Moreover,
it went against the grain of Chinese character to

288 CHINA'S STORY

see maudlin soldiers the lowest of all classes of
society quartering themselves and their horses in
the temples and living decadently in the capitals.

Finally prospect of relief from this state of
affairs came from the South. Contrary to the
usual tide of conquest in the past, there was an
invasion from this section.

In 1925, Sun Yat Sen, China's greatest prophet
of revolution and reform, died in Peking. As with
many prophets, death gave an authority to his
voice which it did not have during his lifetime. He
left a will that was made the bible of the Kuomin-
tang (The People's National Party) ; and to give
further religious fervor to the cause of the party,
Sun was canonized and worshiped in weekly
services. His Three People's Principles (San M in
Chu I) became popular slogans: government by
the people and for the people; a sufficient liveli-
hood for all; and freedom from the control of
foreign nations. Under the skillful guidance of
Borodin and other Russians, an efficient army
and a propaganda squad were developed. In the
summer of 1926, led by an able and sincere young
general named Chiang Kai Shek, the northward
drive was begun. By the summer of 1927, the
Yangtse Valley was in the hands of the Kuomin-
tang, or the Nationalists, the party had been
rid of its more radical faction, and the Russian
advisers had been sent to Moscow. In 1928, many
of the erstwhile bandit leaders rallied around the
Kuomintang standard; and in June of that year

THE REPUBLIC 289

the Nationalist forces entered Peking and con-
cluded a working agreement with the war lord in
power in Manchuria.

Thus, in theory, and to a large extent in fact,
the whole country was for the moment united.
A government was soon established by the Kuo-
mintang at Nanking. This government derived its
authority from the Central Executive Committee
of the party, which in turn represented the Na-
tional Congress. Almost everywhere there were
local party committees, and these took part in
the local governments and thus helped to keep
the country unified.

The officials of the Nanking Government in
the main have been able men of modern Western
education. Chiang Kai Shek, who served first
as Chief Executive and then as Generalissimo,
strengthened his position in the Kuomintang by
marrying the sister-in-law of Sun Yat Sen. Chiang
professed Christianity and every morning studied
the Bible with the help of his wife, who was
educated at Wellesley College.

The city of Nanking has been modernized,
almost beyond recognition. Neon lights glow
behind Chinese characters on street signs, and
there is a system of automobile roads, with stop-
lights at intersections. New government build-
ings have been erected, and on Purple Mountain
in an imposing tomb lie the remains of Sun Yat
Sen, the prophet and dreamer who did not live
to see his dream come true.

290 CHINA'S STORY

The foreign legations, however, have remained
in Peking, which now bears the new name of
Peiping, "northern peace." The Nationalist
Government has adopted more than the outward
aspects of Western civilization. Almost every
department is manned and advised by foreigners
or foreign-educated Chinese; in 1934, a pupil
of Professor Warren, of Cornell, was at work
upon an attempt to add a "commodity dollar"
to China's already muddled currency. It has been
reported also that the Nationalists are drawing
up codes for industry; and it is not inconceivable
that in a country accustomed to the guild system
of economic organization, new codes for the whole
nation will fit into the economic pattern with less
friction than in the United States.

However, a new national government does not
change the character of the people; and the
Kuomintang soon found itself facing many of
the disintegrating forces that had been rampant
before 197. Without the support of foreign
finances and foreign gunboats it is doubtful if it
could have existed. Few provinces paid taxes
regularly; and in various military campaigns
against rebellious generals and Communists, the
Nationalist troops often followed the good Chinese
custom of deserting to the factions that offered
better pay. Sometimes they were encouraged in
this by the fickleness of their officers. In any
event, they usually did not fight with the despera-
tion that often impelled their Communist foes.

THE REPUBLIC 291

Between 1930 and 1933, large inland areas were
in the hands of Communists; and in 1930, a Com-
munist force captured the capital of Hunan Prov-
ince and held it until frightened by shells from
the American gunboat, after American sailors
had been injured by gunfire. In general the raids
of the Communists seem to have been accom-
panied by even greater brutality than those of the
bandits and war lords of former years.

Since they were driven from the Kuomintang
ranks in 1927, the Chinese Communists have con-
centrated upon the consolidation of their position
in two or three localities. The largest of these
lies in the wooded hill-country in the southeast.
Here they established a reign of terror under
strong, intelligent leaders, some of them Russians,
and many, Russian-educated Chinese. They re*
ceived subsidies and advice from Russia, and by
providing good officers and regular pay they built
a really effective army.

So inaccessible is the territory of the Commu-
nists and so rugged their resistance that Chiang
Kai Shek's troops were unable to make headway
against them in 1933 and 1934. On the other
hand, the Communists could do little more to ex-
tend their sway than to make occasional raids
into the countryside bordering on their strong-
holds. Constantly a thorn in the side of the Na-
tionalists, they have been ready at the first sign
of weakness in Nanking to extend their organiza-
tion to the plains. The Communists have thus far

292 CHINA'S STORY

refused to compromise with fundamental Chinese
beliefs regarding religion and the family. There-
fore they have incurred the hatred of scholars of
the old school as well as that of property-holders.
Only through terrorism, it seems, can this new
invasion of the "outer barbarians" hope to im-
pose its heretical social doctrines upon the Chinese
people.

In 1931, several of the leaders of the Kuomin-
tang repudiated the Nanking Government and
set up a government in Canton which, they
claimed, represented the party. Yet the Nanking
Government survived this blow and also the
humiliation inflicted by Japan in Manchuria and
at Shanghai. But judging by the average life-
span of governments under the Republic of China,
by the growing weakness of the Kuomintang,
and by the disintegrating forces now at large
both within and outside China, it is difficult to
consider any government in China a good "risk."
And this applies even to the family and guild
governments, which, during dynastic upheavals
in olden days, saved the sons of Han from com-
plete anarchy.

Even as in the days of the Empire, the day-
by-day conduct of the masses is more important
to the welfare of the nation than the activities
of the National Government. Many of the wisest
citizens are still convinced that "that government
governs best which governs least."

It is to the thoughts of the people themselves,

THE REPUBLIC 293

rather than to the pompous proclamations of the
war lords and the schemes of the various govern-
ments, that one must look for the makings of a
new social structure that can support the stresses
of the modern world. Beneath the struttings of
the men of action there has evolved from within
a new trend of thought, conceived by young in-
tellectuals and transmitted by them to the masses.
This movement is referred to variously as the
Chinese Renascence, or the New Tide. Through
impartial scrutiny of the old native culture and
the cultures of other nations, it endeavors to
construct new values which will have real mean-
ing at the present juncture. It has not yet been
expressed in a plan for national action; but
some day the leaders may work out a national
code of living that will fit the situation so well
that it will put an end to the succession of political
makeshifts that have been imposed from above
and from the outside.

At present the Nanking government appears to
be far more responsive to the needs of the people
than were the various war lords that immediately
preceded it; and therefore it may be considered
a step forward toward political stability.

CHAPTER XXVII

FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE REPUBLIC

ALL these turnings and overturnings within
China herself have been bound up with China's
foreign relations to an extent that must have
made the proud gentlemen of Old China uneasy
in their well-equipped graves.

After the Revolution of 1911, it seemed for a
time as if the country might become the prey of
other powers and particularly of Japan. On May
7, 1915, the crushing Twenty-One Demands were
presented by Japan. A boycott was applied so
vigorously in China that Tokyo withdrew the
most obnoxious group of demands the fifth.
However, after four months of delay, China, hop-
ing for help from some or all of the Occidental
nations, which did not come, yielded and signed
the agreement. Though the attitude of the United
States restrained the aggressive spirit of Japan,
the Lansing-Ishii Agreement recognized Japan's
"special interests" in China.

In reality, this was a temporary reversal of
American policy, and seemed to be a shutting of
the "open door." It is similar to the mistake of
a former administration in giving Japan "a free
hand in Asia" which resulted in hauling down
the Stars and Stripes in Korea, calling home the

FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE REPUBLIC 295

American Legation, and leaving our interests to
the mercies of the Prussianized militarists of
Japan, who promptly made conquest and extin-
guished the sovereignty of Korea, a nation with a
noble history. It is not at all improbable that if
the Washington Government had remained firm
in upholding our treaty with Korea, Japan would
not have broken hers, and embarked on her bump-
tious career in Asia.

With her entrance into the World War in 1917,
the fortunes of China became more than ever
involved with the affairs of the whole world. The
nation was far too weak to make any important
contribution to the cause of the Allies other than
to send battalions of laborers to France. Yet the
war brought to China such immediate gains as
the confiscation of the German and Austrian con-
cessions and the cancellation of the Boxer indem-
nities that were still due to these powers; and later
China enjoyed the great advantage of sitting in
at the Peace Conference at Paris and there stating
her case against Japan to the world. During the
War, however, several of the Allies had promised
to support the Japanese demands in Shantung,
and in the peace negotiations they stood by their
pledge. China, therefore, refused to sign the
Treaty of Versailles and concluded a separate
treaty of peace with Germany; but since the
general treaty with Austria did not contain the
clauses about Shantung, China signed this and
thereby acquired membership in the League of

296 CHINA'S STORY

Nations. Moreover, Japan promised to give back
Shantung when the time seemed ripe.

Since the World War the impact of foreign
powers upon the seacoast of China proper has
grown weaker, partly through the rivalry of the
powers and the skill of the Chinese in playing
one power against another, and partly because of
the campaign of passive resistance against im-
perialism which has been conducted by the
Chinese intellectuals. The struggle for self-govern-
ment by the Chinese has centered largely about
the fixing of tariff rates and the extraterritorial
rights of foreign residents in China. Both foreign
loans and Boxer indemnity payments have been
dependent on customs revenues, and for this
reason, and also to prevent exorbitant "squeeze"
by Chinese officials at the expense of foreign firms,
the Chinese maritime customs was managed by
foreigners under the competent leadership of Sir
Robert Hart. After many conferences on the
subject, and considerable agitation among the
students throughout the country, the foreigners
agreed to allow China to fix her own tariffs. Since
1929 she has exercised this right, and has taken
from the foreign officials in the customs service
more and more responsibilities.

The problem of extraterritorial rights, however,
has been more"stubborn. Although Germany and
Austria lost their concessions during the World
War and other nations have surrendered a few
other concessions voluntarily, the International

FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE REPUBLIC 297

Settlement in Shanghai, the Legation Quarter
in Peking, and a few other small areas still remain
in foreign hands. The major foreign powers have
taken a conciliatory attitude toward the question,
admitting Chinese to membership on the Munici-
pal Council in Shanghai and repeatedly stating
that they willjbe 'glad to give up concessions when
it becomes evident that foreigners can live in
China in reasonable safety. The Chinese for their
part have asserted just as persistently that they
would be better able to preserve order in their
nation if there were no foreign concessions through
which bandit leaders could secure arms and could
escape the hand of Chinese justice. They also
sometimes politely direct the attention of the
foreigners to the similarity between gang warfare
in certain Occidental cities and banditry in
China.

So the argument has dragged on, often raised
dangerously near to battle pitch by "incidents"
in which foreigners have been captured and
sometimes killed b> bandits, and by episodes in
which Chinese have been shot by foreign police
or gunboats. Most serious among these affairs
were the "Shanghai Massacre" of 1925, in which
rioting students were shot down by the police of
the International Settlement in Shanghai, the
reverberations of this episode at the Shameen in
Canton and elsewhere, a serious skirmish between
Chinese and British forces at Wan-hsien on the
upper Yangtse, and the sack of Nanking and the

298 CHINA'S STORY

killing of an American missionary by victorious
Nationalist troops in 1927.

Nevertheless, through these years of strife the
Chinese have made important gains. The British
have returned four concessions and Belgium one.
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs an-
nounced in 1928 that the Nationalist Government
would forthwith take steps to end those "unequal
treaties which have not yet expired and conclude
new treaties." By 1925 more than half the for-
eigners living in China had no extraterritorial
rights. In 1931 the Nanking Government an-
nounced that on January 1, 1932, they would
assume jurisdiction over all foreigners in China
outside the few remaining foreign concessions and
settlements, under regulations which made special
provisions for the trial of foreigners. Japan's
activities in 1931, and internal difficulties, how-
ever, delayed the beginning of this new regime,
and the major foreign powers do not yet feel that
the special rights of their citizens have been
abolished, or that the Nanking Government has
effected reasonable security of life and property.

All of these gains on China's part and they
may be considered conquests as truly as those of
the Tartars have come, not through force, but
through moral suasion, propaganda, and most of
all through clever use of the economic boycott.
Under the leadership of the intellectuals, still
the most respected class in Chinese society, the
merchants and proletariat have often made life

FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE REPUBLIC 299

unbearable for the foreign trader without recourse
to violence. The loss of millions of dollars of
trade has had much to do with the mellowing of
the diplomacy of the foreign powers since the
World War.

In the case of one foreign nation, however,
China's diplomatic tactics seem unsuccessful in
the light of recent developments. For a time, in-
deed, the Japanese made diplomatic concessions
as a result of a vigorous boycott of their goods,
In a highly industrialized and overpopulated
country like Japan, trade with her neighbors is
life-blood, and when this was let by the Chinese
boycott, Japan in self-defense agreed to return
the former German property in Shantung to
China. At the Washington Conference during the
winter of 1921-22 she signed the "Nine-Power
Treaty" which guaranteed the territorial and
administrative integrity of China. This agree-
ment cleared the air temporarily, though Japan
retained valuable holdings in Tsingtao and a voice
in the conduct of certain railways. During the
decade following the Washington Conference, the
wrath of the Chinese Nationalists was turned
principally against the European imperialists, and
then against the Russians. In 1928 there was one
serious clash with Japanese troops which had been
sent to Tsinan to defend Japanese residents; but
the conflict was settled by negotiations between
the two governments which resulted in China's
guaranteeing the safety of Japanese life and pro-

300 CHINA'S STORY

perty and in Japan's withdrawing its troops from
Shantung. But in general, and on the surface,
China's relations with Japan, both in China pro-
per and in Manchuria, were as serene during this
period as those with any foreign power.

Then the rulers of Japan made a momentous
decision. For many years they had played the
"Open Door" game with the Western powers
along the Chinese seacoast, and at the same time
had made gestures of interest in China's northern
land frontier. Now she was to commit herself
definitely to the playing of a lone hand along the
land route to China.

Although for many years a political " tinder
box" because of its web of foreign interests and
lack of a strong native government, Manchuria
during the nineteen-twenties became more and
more obviously Chinese in population and senti-
ment. For several years a bandit chieftain named
Chang Tso Lin held sway in Mukden, with a good
deal of Japanese advice and support. Japan owned
the South Manchuria Railway, and administered
it with Western efficiency, using armed guards to
protect the railway property. Under this r6gime
the province enjoyed an existence that, while
hardly a Pax Romana* was at least remarkable
by contrast with chaotic conditions in China
proper. It was only natural, therefore, that the
bandit-harried, tax-ridden peasants of the prov-
inces south of the Great Wall should regard the
grass north of the Wall as greener and migrate

FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE REPUBLIC 301

by the millions to Manchuria. About three
quarters of Manchuria's population were Chinese
at the turn of the century, and this new wave of
immigrants made the whole province even more
distinctly Chinese in race. It even caused many
observers to feel that there was to be a greater
overflow of China's human "reservoir" which
would perhaps result in the absorption of all
Mongolia and perhaps of Siberia by the Chinese.
By 1931 the Chinese had new railways which com-
peted with the South Manchurian. Chang Tso
Lin had met a violent death, for which the Japa-
nese were under suspicion. Chang Hsueh Liang,
who succeeded his father as the ruler of the prov-
ince, often vexed the Japanese by his inability to
preserve order and by his lack of consideration
of their interests. Chang Hsueh Liang liked to
think of himself as the guardian of the northeast-
ern frontier of China, and in 1928 he accepted the
fCuomintang flag and gave his allegiance to the
Nanking Government, with reservations. As trad-
ing conditions in Manchuria became more pre-
carious, Japan's need for foreign trade became
more urgent. She must keep her factories at home
busy, and in turn secure food and raw materials.
She had no desire to colonize Manchuria; but
trade she must have, and hence a stable and de-
pendable government.

Consequently, it was not surprising that Japan
should make an alleged explosion under the track
of the South Manchuria Railway an excuse for

302 CHINA'S STORY

a military occupation of the province. A new
state Manchukuo was soon set up. It was
organized ostensibly by Chinese; and Henry Pu
Yi, the "little emperor" of the Manchu Dynasty
who had been deposed in 191, became Chief
Executive and later Emperor. Obviously, how-
ever, Pu Yi and his adviser were puppets dancing
on wires pulled by Japanese.

Japan then encountered a demonstration of the
old Chinese proverb which says that "y u cannot
hang a jellyfish on a nail." Bandits and irregular
Chinese forces nagged at the Japanese troops for
months as the latter penetrated to the Great Wall
in a rather fruitless attempt to set the province
in order. Insurgents sprang up almost in the foot-
prints of the fast-moving Japanese forces.

Immediately all China bristled with hostility
to Japan. Japanese trade in the eighteen provinces
shrank almost to nothing. There was rioting in
many places, notably in Shanghai; and although
the Chinese municipal authorities agreed with
Japan's demand for dissolution of the Shanghai
boycott associations, Japanese marines were sent
ashore and desperate fighting and a severe bom-
bardment followed. The strength of the resistance
of the Chinese forces was without precedent in
China's recent history, and showed the world that,
given regular pay and loyal and able officers, the
Chinese soldier is an effective fighting man.

With the help of the good offices of other foreign
powers, Japan was induced to leave the dis-

FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE REPUBLIC 303

trict which she occupied at Shanghai; but the
solution of the Manchurian problem caused grave
concern to the other powers for many months.
Many of them considered Japan's action a direct
violation of the Nine-Power Treaty of 192 and
of the Pact of Paris in which Japan renounced
war "as an instrument of national policy." China
promptly appealed to the League of Nations. The
United States made it plain that it would not
approve Japan's actions in Manchuria, and worked
closely with the League of Nations. Although
Japan's acts were condemned by the League and
Japan resigned from that body, and although the
new state of Manchukuo had not been recognized
by the powers, Japan appeared to have gained a
victory. For in May, 1933, China and Japan
agreed that the former should withdraw all troops
from the region between Peking and the Great
Wall, and that the Japanese should remain north
of the Wall, in control of Manchuria.

Of the ultimate advantage of Japan's conquest
of Manchuria, either to conqueror or to conquered,
there is much skepticism. Certainly Japan can
expect from the region little of the iron and cotton
that she needs. In her attempt to restore order
throughout Manchuria she has not yet proved to
be an exception to the rule that in China it takes
a bandit to catch a bandit.

Whatever may be the ultimate advantage of
Manchukuo to Japan, there is little doubt but
that she could have attained the same ends more

304: CHINA'S STORY

diplomatically. Japan's main objective, trade,
cannot be secured at the point of a gun, as the
other powers learned several years ago. The
Manchurian and Shanghai episodes so stirred the
emotions of the people throughout China that
Japan's trade balance with China dropped in 193&
to less than two fifths of the figure for 1931,
and a further decline was later suffered.

Moreover, China is not taking the Japanese
threat passively, as she has taken the onslaughts
of the Tartars of old and the aggression of their
successors, the Russians. The latter forces
seemed as normal and inevitable as the dust
storms from the desert; but the Japanese menace
from the sea is unnatural and hence more terrify-
ing. The resistance of the Chinese forces at
Shanghai showed that the Chinese can fight when
sufficiently aroused. It bodes no good for Japan,
with her enormous cities of highly inflammable
buildings, that large developments in aviation
are taking place in China. In 1934, Japan issued
a protest that was unmistakably directed against
aeronautical activities of the United States in
China, but later modified the protest in order to
placate the fear of the United States that the
"Open Door" policy was being questioned.

This protest on the part of Japan made it clear
to China that Japan expected a good share of
China's trade. Partly through fear of Japan and
partly because of the need of her support in sup-
pressing Communist activities in China, the Na-

FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE REPUBLIC 305

tionalist Government in the summer of 1934 be-
came more cordial to Japan. Through train serv-
ice to Manchuria was resumed, and tariffs were
revised in favor of goods in which Japan deals
largely.

In thinking of the future of China's northern
frontier there is another vital and unpredictable
force to be considered Russia* The Soviet
Government has shown an understanding of China
which for a time gave them a hold upon the nation
greater than that of any other foreign power.
When other nations, after the World War, were
trying to continue the policy of forceful penetra-
tion of the nineteenth century, Russia, with every-
thing to gain and nothing to lose, adopted a policy
of magnanimity and of boring from within.

After the Russian Revolution, many of the
"White" Russians took refuge in China; and
upon the fall of the monarchy, China was quick
to renounce its various obligations to Russia.
The Communists, aware that they probably had
as little chance of retrieving these lost rights as
foreign countries had of collecting Czarist debts
from the Soviet, with a grand gesture issued a
manifesto in 1919 in which they offered to re-
nounce all special privileges in China, to cancel
all further payments toward the Boxer indemnity,
and to restore the Chinese Eastern Railway with-
out compensation. Although Russia subsequently
refused to live up to the last offer the only
one of the three which was not forced upon her

306 CHINA'S STORY

by the trend of events the gesture loomed so
magnificently over the greedy policies of the other
powers at this time that Russia gained much
" face " in the eyes of the young students of China.

Russian agents were sent to Canton, which
because of Sun Yat Sen's activities and the natural
volatility of the people seemed the best hotbed
in which to cultivate a revolution of the pro-
letariat. Although the merchants and military
leaders had little sympathy with the Russian
agents still looking upon them, in spite of their
subtlety, as of kin with the Tartars of old they
were not unwilling to accept the financial aid
and the military advice which the Russians offered.
In return they were forced only to give permission
for the Russians to spread propaganda for com-
munism among the students and peasants. It
seemed reasonably sure to the Chinese leaders
that, as long as they retained control of the army
and of the dapper Whampoa cadets, now out-
fitted with Russian equipment and a knowledge
of modern warfare, they would be able to send
the Russians packing at a moment's notice if
their propaganda should become embarrassing.

It was a clever game, and as had happened so
often before when Chinese wits matched Tartar,
the Chinese played it out successfully. In 1927,
the Kuomintang army and the Communist pro-
pagandists marched north side by side, and to-
gether overthrew the ruling dictators in the prov-
inces of Central China. However, the Russian

FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE REPUBLIC 307

propagandists, reinforced by hundreds of Chinese
who had received a free grounding in communism
at the Sun Yat Sen University in Moscow, took
advantage of the ensuing disorder to organize
everyone from the night-soil carriers to the
nurses in foreign hospitals into workers' unions.
These and other radical developments, including
attacks upon the fundamentals of Confucian
morality, made the leaders take alarm so violently
that they organized a moderate government in
Nanking which soon expelled the Communist
element in the central provinces. Borodin and
other Russian advisers were sent back to Russia,
the Russian consulates were closed, and shortly
afterward the Russian legation in Peking was
searched for incriminating papers, and closed.

After these events it was inevitable that sparks
should fly in Manchuria, where since 1924 the
Chinese Eastern Railway had been operated
jointly by Chinese and Russians under an agree-
ment between Chang Tso Lin and the Soviet.
Chang Tso Lin was bitterly opposed to Com-
munist theories, and in 1929 he seized the railway
and arrested the Russian officials. This railway
is a vital link in the Trans-Siberian line from
Moscow to Vladivostok, and therefore in 1931
Russia invaded Manchuria and forcibly regained
control. Her interests here brought her danger-
ously near to conflict with Japan in 1933, but
in 1934 negotiations finally were completed for
the purchase of the road by Japan.

308 CHINA'S STOKY

In the northwest since the Revolution the strife
of the centuries has gone on. Outer Mongolia,
the vast region of nomads lying between the
Chinese provinces and Siberia, in 1912 was re-
leased of its bonds with China by the abdication
of the Emperor. China took advantage of Russia's
weakness to restore herself in power in Urga in
1919-20. This was followed by a period of rule
by the Living Buddha and the native princes,
under the protection of Soviet forces. Upon the
death of the Living Buddha, a Socialist Soviet
Republic, with affiliation with Moscow, was set
up.

In 1931 and 1932 many people of Outer Mongo-
lia, discontented with the collectivization program
of the Soviet, had fled to the Chinese provinces
of Inner Mongolia. In 1932 there was an unsuc-
cessful uprising of Mongol Nationalists in Western
Outer Mongolia. A spirit of independence typical
of roving peoples long has been manifest among
the Mongols. In the course of the solving of the
three-cornered dilemma which besets Russia,
China, and Japan in Manchuria, Mongolia may
have an opportunity to rid herself of all outside
influence. A convenient nucleus for such a move-
ment is Hsingan Province, the largest of the prov-
inces of Manchuria and the one situated next to
Mongolia. The State of Manchukuo has given
self-government and the right to raise troops to
the Mongol inhabitants of this province.

Farther west, new railroads in Siberia have

FOREIGN RELATIONS OJr THE REPUBLIC 309

enabled Russia to penetrate into the province of
Sinkiang, and it is likely that commercial relations
here will be followed by political control.

Those who understand the Chinese heart and
have sincere sympathy the key to interpreta-
tion will make the best conquest of China. Of
no nation or people can it be said more truly than
of those who strive to gain victory over the
Chinese

"Who overcomes by force
Hath overcome but half his foe."

In spite of temporary gains here and there by
foreign powers that would prey upon Chinese
territory, those who know China best feel that in
the future as in the past, China, by her own
peculiar political methods, will in the long run
wear out and overcome every would-be conqueror.

CHAPTER XXVIII

NEW WAYS OF LIFE

WE have already seen that in the opening of
China to relations with the outer barbarians, the
traders have been the pioneers and, contrary to
the old saying, the flag has followed trade. On
both sides desire for trade was the reason for
establishing political relations. Unfortunately for
China, and for her opinion of foreign nations, the
articles sold to her people by the foreign traders
of the nineteenth century were often harmful to
the nation. Foreign ships took opium to Canton;
and now poppies flourish in most of the provinces
of China, theoretically contrary to law, but often
actually with the encouragement of war lords who
are greedy for the fines which the grower has to
pay, and no observant traveler among the Chinese
can go far without evidence of the extensive
traffic in this drug and of its effect upon the fiber
of those who smoke it- So poor are China's re-
sources of iron and her manufacturing facilities
that it is doubtful if the orgies of banditry and
militarism of this century could have taken place
without secret shipment of munitions from Japan,
Russia, and other powers. Tobacco, mainly in
cigarettes, has become a major item of importa-

NEW WAYS OF LIFE 311

tion, as has kerosene, which is widely used in lamps
distributed by the American and British oil com-
panies. Other Chinese imports are raw cotton,
machinery, and manufactured goods; and, sur-
prisingly enough, a good deal of flour, wheat,
sugar, and even rice have been brought in. This,
and the fact that some manufactured goods,
particularly cotton goods, have been exported in
recent years indicate that this great agricultural
nation is turning more and more to the industrial-
ism of the West. Unfortunately, many cotton
mills and cigarette factories have been established
in China by foreigners who count on sweating
their Chinese labor so unmercifully that they can
undersell other nations.

Silk is still the leading article of export, and
other goods sent abroad in quantities are tea,
vegetable oils, and eggs. Regularly since 1894
China has imported goods of greater value than
her exports.

Until the recent episodes in Manchuria and
Shanghai, Japan led all other foreign nations in
the amount of her trade with China. In 1932,
however, the United States took first place and
Great Britain next. Partly because of a tendency
toward direct trading, without middlemen, the
British port of Hongkong handled only about nine
per cent of China's foreign trade in 193, com-
pared with twenty-nine per cent in 1913. Of all
foreign nations, however, Great Britain still carries
the largest share of China's sea-borne commerce

312 CHINA'S STORY

and has the largest share of foreign investment in
China proper.

To a large extent the railway, motor-bus, and
airplane have supplanted the junk, Peking cart,
sedan chair, and wheelbarrow as agencies of
passenger and express transportation. The twenty
years preceding the World War was China's
"railway age" and in this period many lines north
of the Yangtse were built. Civil wars and lack
of capital checked the building of railways after
the World War, but recently some of the returned
British Boxer indemnity funds have been allotted
to the Peking-Hankow-Canton line.

Since the World War many automobile roads
have been built in the inland provinces, often
by the war lords, for tactical reasons. Then, too,
city streets have been widened and paved for
motor traffic, and highways have replaced city
walls in several centers. Airplanes carry mail
and passengers between the important cities,
and steamers, usually foreign-owned, ply on the
navigable rivers. In telegraphy, the "lightning
threads," as the natives call the wires, have
been spread all over the country. In the large
cities telephones are no longer luxuries, but ne-
cessities.

All of these new nerves have made the Chinese
far more alert to events in other parts of their na-
tion and so have helped to develop a keener sense
of nationalism. Conflicts with foreign powers on
the coast are reported usually in exaggerated

NEW WAYS OF LIFE 313

terms in the newspapers far inland in a very
few hours after they take place.

Despite the creation of factories in port cities
and the increase of exports of manufactured goods,
only about one per cent of the people were en-
gaged in large-scale industry in 1930. Most goods
still come from small handicraft units organized
under guilds. The formation of many labor unions
by Kuomintang agitators in 1926-28, and the
organization of employers in chambers of com-
merce for a while seemed likely to lead to a hori-
zontal set-up of industry in place of the vertical
guild system. But though the chambers of com-
merce still flourish, the unions by 1933 were few
and weak.

Commerce in China has been severely handi-
capped by a complex and unstable currency
system. There is some truth, as well as some ex-
aggeration, in the story of the traveler who started
to Peiping from Canton with a fund of a thousand
Canton dollars in his pocket, resolved to spend
none of it, but to get it changed in each city that
had a different currency. He had only five hundred
left when he arrived in Peiping, and next to none
when he came back to Canton. In addition to the
many different provincial standards, and to differ-
ing ratios between "big money" and "small
money," the foreign trader is at ,the mercy of
frequent shifts hi the exchange ratios, due to the
fact that China is the only large nation to do
business on a silver standard. The unusual cur-

314 CHINA'S STORY

rency policies of Western nations have further
muddled the situation in recent years, and the
decision of the United States to buy silver brought
protests of Chinese who feared further disorganiza-
tion of prices in China as a result.

In other parts of the world to which they have
migrated, the Chinese have shown that, given
peace and a stable currency, they can more than
hold their own in industry and trade. Should the
relatively peaceful conditions which have existed
since 198 continue, it is possible there will be a
development of the arts that will make it possible
for even China's present large population to enjoy
a higher standard of living. In the past, flood and
famine have been the principal checks upon the
size of the population, but since the World War
foreigners and the Chinese have applied them-
selves to the control of these dread forces. It
will be a happy day, indeed, for China when an
equally intelligent effort is made to abolish the
religious and ethical beliefs which have obliged
every good man to fill his house with as many sons
as he could, so that, regardless of the miseries of
this world, his soul might be well attended in the
next. It is significant, perhaps, that in Amoy,
once thought to be China's most revolting port,
the graves that have for centuries monopolized
the near-by hillsides have given way to modem
houses for the living.

It is clear now that China is passing through,
not merely a period of political changes like those

NEW WAYS OF LIFE 315

between the old dynasties, but a fundamental up-
heaval in the social and economic ways of life.
To a great extent old patterns of thought have
been completely discarded; and the direction of
China's path in the future will depend largely
upon the leadership of her men of thought.

It is from the scholars the most respected
class in Chinese society rather than from the
rulers, that the Chinese people have always taken
their ideals. Under the Confucian system the
intellectuals have been the high priests of China;
and in the social revolution which began soon after
the Boxer troubles and is still in progress they have
continued to set new tunes for the masses to dance
to. "In some respects," says Latourette, "be-
tween 1895 and 1933 the mental life of China
moved farther from its old mooring than that of
the West had done between the thirteenth and
twentieth centuries. "

At the beginning of the twentieth century there
was a great exodus of native students from every
province in the Chinese Empire to Japan. In
mind, they were exactly like the Japanese of fifty
years before, for most of these eager youths im-
agined that they could learn the secrets of Western
civilization in a few months, and having imbibed
the knowledge necessary, could reconstruct Old
China in a very few years. Turning with contempt
from foreigners, missionary or commercial, to their
fellow Asiatics, with great expectations and not
infrequently with seditious motives and anti-

316 CHINA'S STORY

dynastic hostility, they hastened to Tokyo to the
number of twenty thousand or more, giying the
resident Chinese Minister and the Japanese
Government a problem in keeping them in moral
harness* The differences in spirit and manners
and the difficulties of language between the
Chinese and Japanese, added to those of personal
finance, chilled the noble rage of these enthusiastic
young fellows, thus unduly tested. More than
half of them soon returned, some with just enough
knowledge to make them dangerous. Returning
to China, they led riotous demonstrations against
their magistrates at home with a view of influenc-
ing the Government to drive the Japanese out of
Manchuria. Thousands, however, remained in
Japan, becoming pupils who realized the greatness
of the noble tasks still in the future before them.
Thousands of Chinese girls have been sent to
Japan and to Western countries. Thousands of
others students, including scores of ** indemnity
students," have come to the United States and
Europe at the suggestion of the governments, to
be educated from the funds returned from the
Boxer indemnity. These Chinese students abroad,
male and female, have altered their coiffure, dress
in Western fashion, hold annual conventions, be-
long to cosmopolitan clubs, and in every way are
endeavoring to absorb what is best in the world's
civilization. It is they who upon their return to
their homes have borne the brunt of the stresses
produced by the conflicting ways of life of the

NEW WAYS OF LIFE 317

two civilizations. They have taken an increasingly
large part in the administration of the various
Chinese governments. In 199, one of every ten
employees of the National Government had
studied in the United States or in Europe, and
the proportion of foreign-educated higher officials
was even greater.

Since the abolition of the civil service examina-
tions in 1905, efforts have been put forth to make
knowledge the birthright of the masses rather than
the cult of a few pedigreed scholars. Many ex-
cellent schemes were drawn up during the last
years of the Empire and under the Republic,
looking toward a greater or less degree of com-
pulsory general education. However, there have
been leisure and public funds for the successful
prosecution of very few of the projects. By 1923,
only about six and one-half million pupils, less
than two per cent of the population, were enrolled
in government schools of all grades. About half
a million were in Christian mission schools and
perhaps three million in private schools of the
old type. Higher education, originally developed
by missionary enterprise, now is carried on
also by several ' Chinese < institutions of first
rank in various provinces. Altogether, in 1931,
thirty-four universities and colleges were operat-
ing, also sixteen technical schools and about thir-
teen hundred secondary schools. Many of the
latter were also supported from abroad. The
Chinese have not always felt happy about accept-

318 CHINA'S STORY

ing foreign charity on the foreigners* own terms;
and therefore, to save their ego, the Nanking
Government drew up a set of regulations to which
foreign schools must subscribe. It was character-
istic of the agnostic and scientific attitude of the
awakened Chinese that all schools should be for-
bidden to hold compulsory religious services. The
new regulations also required that the schools
be administered by Chinese and that military
training be given. The difficulty of finding com-
petent teachers has been one of the greatest im-
pediments to the educational progress of China,
but this is now being solved in part through the
employment of many of the graduates of foreign
schools in China and abroad. Nevertheless, the
desire and intention to master the secrets of
Western progress and a perception of the necessity
of being equal to the other nations in modern
knowledge are manifest both in the Government
and among the people.

The modern Chinese intellectuals have been
even more active than their scholarly predecessors
in affairs of state; and, in view of the sudden re-
moval of many of the Confucian restraints, it
has often been difficult for teachers to keep the
students from indulgence in political agitation
at the expense of sound scholarship. Many of the
developments of the last decade in politics and in
diplomacy have resulted directly from ideas car-
ried from the classroom to the masses by im-
mature students, who were often themselves under

NEW WAYS OF LIFE 319

the influence of outside agitators who had axes
to grind.

Education of the masses has been limited almost
entirely to oral efforts, for most of the peasantry
know too few of the thousands of Chinese char-
acters to be able to read books or newspapers.
James Y. C. Yen, a Y.M.C.A. worker who was
educated in America, has tried to extend the
power of the written word by choosing about a
thousand essential characters and teaching these
by mass education methods upon which he is ex-
perimenting intensively. Trained writers produce
newspapers in the thousand characters in much
the same way in which "Basic English" is put
together. Under the leadership of Hu Shih, most
famous of the scholars of Young China, the pai
hua, or plain speech of the people, has supplanted
the involved rhetoric of the scholars of the old
school; and an effort has been made to teach one
dialect of the Mandarin tongue throughout the
nation so that when men from Canton and Peking
meet, they will not have to trace characters in
their palms in order to communicate with one
another.

Chiang Kai Shek and others in authority in
Nanking, apparently somewhat skeptical of the
political potentialities of this movement, have tried
to shift its emphasis from thought to manners.
Among the employees of the Government a
definite effort has been made to revive the code
of etiquette of days of yore; and in the army an

320 CHINA'S STORY

officers' Moral Improvement Association has been
formed.

New devices of the machine age have begun
to play a part in spreading Western ideas through
China. Yellow journalism has flourished, and pla-
cards and flyers have been used freely as pro-
paganda. Western movies which have failed to
pass the censor have been dumped in China and
have given the Chinese a highly spiced notion of
our manners and morals. Imagine the effect of a
Ramon Novarro and Lupe Velez fadeout in a
country in which a marital kiss in public is a sign
of utter abandon! Then, too, the radio has caught
the ear of those few who can afford it.

As Young China saw more and more clearly
the "mote" in the eye of the foreigner from the
West, it was natural that foreign religion and
philosophy should command less respect. Because
of this, and because of Young China's faith in
science as a cure-all, all religious bodies in China
suffered losses. Confucianism was so identified
with the old regime that it lost prestige. In fact,
none of the native Sects were supple enough to
adjust their activities to take advantage of the
new conditions. Christian missionaries, however,
and particularly the Protestant, were quick to
adapt their program to the needs of modern China.
By emphasizing practical affairs such as schools,
medical and agricultural improvements, and flood
and famine relief, by 1925 the Protestant mis-
sionaries had increased Ihcir own number to about

THB MAGIC OK THE 'FOREIGN DEVIL'
at \ ulMH-China lcuvi k their play to HCC the tryout ol n new

NEW WAYS OF LIFE 321

eight thousand and the number of the Chinese
Christians to nearly half a million. In 1929 there
were a little less than two and a half million
Roman Catholics. Although together Protestants
and Roman Catholics amounted to fewer than
one per cent of the whole population, Chinese
Christians have exerted a profound influence upon
their country because of the eminence of several
of their number ( Sun Yat Sen, Feng Yu Hsiang,
and Chiang Kai Shek, for example.

When the young intellectuals in China showed
their disdain for religion and included missionaries
in their anti-foreign outbursts, and the funds
available for missionary enterprises shrank, the
foreign staffs were cut rapidly, and more authority
and responsibility were invested in the Chinese
Christians.

China's legal code, like her educational system,
also has been thoroughly revised under the
Republic, and a distinguished international jurist
has pronounced the new code one of the world's
best. Unfortunately, however, it has been neither
generally accepted nor generally enforced through-
out the country.

In many of the new ways of life, and particu-
larly in the Chinese Renascence, there is evidence
aplenty that China is coming of age in the modern
world. Doubtless she has learned from her own
experience and from that of Japan that too un-
critical acceptance of Western civilization may
be as harmful as blind devotion to Confucian

322 CHINA'S STORY

tradition. True to the temper of the people,
there seems to be a growing determination to
cleave to the middle way and to build there a
society that will square with the realities of the
new era.

OUTLINE OF CHRONOLOGY

THE DYNASTIES

NAME

AGE OF MYTHOLOGY AND LEGEND

The Age of the Five Rulers .
Hia Dynasty

9

17

B.C. 2852
2205

B. c. 2205
1766

647
439

Bhang or Yin *.*.

28

1706

1122

644

SEMI-HISTOKICAL PERIOD: 1122-770 B. C.
THE FEUDAL SYSTEM : 770-209 B. C.

Chow ...

84

1122

255

867

ERA OF CENTRALIZATION

Tsin or Chin

5

255

206

49

Huu, Former Han, or Western
Han

14

200

A. D. 25

231

Later Han, or Eastern Han .

12

A. D. 25

221

196

PERIOD OF DISUNION

The Three Kingdoms . . .
Western Tsin, or Chin . . .
Eastern Tain, or Chin . . .

11
4
11

221
317

265
317
420

44
52

103

324 CHINA'S STORY

OUTLINE OF CHRONOLOGY Continued

fq CO

o ^

L-j

J^J

H

NAME

3 w

gg

g

g

^

MS

H

3

DIVISION OF THE EMPIRE INTO NORTH (TARTARS)
AND SOUTH (CHINESE)

Sung .

58
9

A, D, 420

420

A. D. 589
479

169
59

CM, or Tsi

7

479

502

23

Q

502

537

55

Chen . .

5

C57

589

M

15

386

535

140

8

533

557

W.

1

534

550

\(\

7

550

589

39

Northern Chow

5

557

589

32

PERIOD OF RECONSOLIDATION

Sui

4

589

618

29

Toner r

?fl

618

907

2R9

PERIOD OP MILITARY SUPREMACY

The Five Dynasties . . , .

13

2

907
907

960
923

53
16

4

923

936

13

2

936

947

11

2

947

951

4

3

951

960

9

OUTLINE OF CHRONOLOGY 325

OUTLINE OF CHRONOLOGY Continued

NAME

NUMBER OF
SOVEREIGNS i

ii

8 S
tt S

i

1

A. D. 960-1280: THE EMPIRE DIVIDED BETWEEN
TARTARS AND CHINESE

Liao fK!i~tau) ......

9
5
10

9

9

A. p. 907

1125
1115

960
1127

A. B, 1125

1168
1260

1127
1280

218
43
145

167
153

Kin (Nu-clien)

Southern Sung-

THE MONGOL SUPREMACY

Yuan (Mongol)
Mine*

9

17

1280
1368

1368
1644

88
276

THE MANCHU CONQUEST

Tsig

10

1644

Portuguese in China . . .
IfoitiHU Wars *

1511
1840

1861

Krcuoh War ....

1S84

War with Japan

1894
1900

1895

KuHso-Japanese War . . .

1904

1905

326 CHINA'S STORY

OUTLINE OF CHRONOLOGY Concluded
THE REPUBLIC

1910. Promise of the Throne to form a Cabinet and summon a
National Assembly in 1913. National Assembly opens
in Peking.

1911. Sun Yat Sen and the Southern Provinces revolt.

February, 1912. The Emperor abdicates. Yuan Shi Kai presi-
dent of the provisional government. Formation of a
government in Canton. Civil war.

1913. Congress meets in Peking, Yuan Shi Kai chosen presi-
dent.

1914. Yuan Shi Kai dissolves the Congress.

1915. Constitutional monarchy proclaimed. Coronation of
Yuan Shi Kai fixed for the coming February. Revolt in
Yunnan. Japan presents her twenty-one demands, fol-
lowed by ultimatum*

1916. Yuan after usurpation surrenders civil authority to the
Cabinet. Canton government formed. China with two
presidents and two governments. The boycott against
Japan Death of Yuan Shi Kai. Reconvening of the
Congress in Peking

1917. The boy -emperor reinstated. Reign of six days. The
Lansing-Ishii agreement.

1918. Hsu Shih Chang President, to serve until 1923, Two
Congresses at Canton and Peking. Failure of peace
conference at Shanghai.

1919. Two Northern Factions, Anfu and Chili.

1920. The Anfu and Chili factions come to blows in the capital.
Split in the Canton group.

1921. The Washington Conference reaffirms the Opcn-Door
principle and abolishes American recognition of "special
interests" in Asia.

1925. Death and canonization of Sun Yat Sen.

1927. Nationalist Government at Nanking organized by the
Kuomintang Party.

1928. All China theoretically united under the Nanking regime.
1931-1932. Fighting with Japan in Manchuria and at Shanghai.

INDEX

INDEX

Abdication, 259

Abel and Cam, 100

Aborigines, 3, 31, 36, 37, 59, 06, 101,
235

Actois, 162, 103

Acupuncture, 51

Adam and Kvc, 0, 41

Adnmal Tang, 253

Admiral Yu, 172

Amu, 101

Alliance*, 260, 270

Allies in 1000, 265-274

Alphabet, 127

Amcnt, Dr W S , 271

America, 150, 268-271

Americans in Cluna, 105, 201, 210-
213, 205-274

Amhcisl, Loid, 105

Amoor River, 149, 275

Arnoy, 104, 200, 31 1

Ancestors, 168, 173

Ancestor worship, 61-65, 110, 140,
168, 187

Aneeshaltablets, 116

Anfu Club, 286-287

Annnm, 154, 243-215

Anli-Chustian writings, 231, 248

Anh-foicign riots, 230, 232

An Tung, 270

Arabia, 163

Aiabian Nights, 163

Arabs, 39, 101, US

Aroheiy, 115, 117, 118, 153, 155, 211,

212

Are! 1 1 lecture, 168
Armies, standing, 225. 226
Armstrong, Commodore, 211
Army rcoi ganwal ion, 281
Arrow affair, 207-210
Art, 6, 7, 117-120, 128, 129, 130, 136,

142, 168
Aryan, 127, 140

A.ssocialum oC ideas, 76, 196, 197
AHlronoiny, 55, 181, 182
Audience question, 84, 85, 194, 108,

38

Augustan age,, 125, 142
Austria, 265, 295
Aviation, 103, 180, 304, 312
Awakening of Chmu, 229, 47-

249
AXCH, 118, 119

Baikal, 149

Balance of power, 241

Baltic fleet, 277

Bamboo, 133, 136, 154, 163, 168, 231

Bamboo Grove, 80

Banishment, 39

Bank notes, 9, 143

Bants, 143, 160

Ban ler foik, 21 1-214

Barriers, 87, 111, 203

Bayan, GeneiaJ, 152

Beans, 81

Beast woishm, 61, 94

Boll, Admnal, 235

Bells, 66, 168

Benedict, 151

Binding oi books, 130

Bismarck, Prince, 241

Blaek Flags,, 211, 215

Blending of laces, 42

Blessings, the five, 91

Blood-dunking, 113

Blue gown, 145

Boguc foils, 103, 210

Book of Odes, 73-80

Book of Wai, 123

Books, 136, 20 ti

Boiodin, 288, 307

Bo^cr Indemnity, 295, 200, 305, 317

Boxer riots, 125, '233-257

Boxeis, 157, 261-271

Boycott, 298-299

Boys, 78

Bie<ik-up oi China, 255, 256, 269

Buck tea, 133

Budge of wings, 106

Bright dynasty, 176

Biooms, 115

Brown, Rev S. R , 249

Biucc, 8u tfiedeuck, 2H

Buddha, lit

Buddha-gin don, 157

Buddhism, 5, 37, 105, 106, 120-12%

139-111, 163, 109
Buddhists, 9, 261
Burgevme, 222
Burial alive, 167, 168
Burlmgumc, lion. Anson, 229
Burma, 154, 18IJ, 102, 243

Calendar, 53, 82, 181, 185
Cambodia, 154

330

INDEX

CambuJac, 152

Camels, 30, 31

Camoens, 180

Camphor, 234

Canals, 121, 168

Cannon, 153, 157

Canton, 152, 180, 103, 194, 200, 213,

306

Capitals, 78, 148
Carpmi, 151
Cassia tree, 118, 119
Castles, 144
Catapults, Ifi2
Categories, 94, 95
Cathay, 125, 158
Cavaliy, 147, 153, 218, 219
Celestials, 10
Ceramic art, 134
Chaffee, General A K , 268
Chang Hsueh Liang, 301
Chang Tso Lm, 300, 301, 307
Characters, written, 10, 11
Chanots, 51, 74, 79
Cheng brothers, 138-140
Chiang Kai Shek, 288, 289, 298, 319,

321

Chili, 39
Chin, 72

China and Japan, H2, 170
China for the Chinese, 157
China, histoiy of, 136
China, isolation of, 23-25
China, names of, 9, 10, 106, 145, 156,

169, 213, 234

China, spoliation of, 255, S56, 260
Chinese, characteristics of, 4, 6, 182,

183, 224

Chinese Eastern Railway, 305, 307
Chinese Empire, 24-26, 170
Chinese and Taitars, 140-166
Chinese in America, 32, <249
Chinese Bena&cencc, 293
Chinese words, 190
Ching, Prince, 272
Chrao-Japanese Wai, 83, 124, 249-

254

Chow dynasty, 68, 71
Chn&tiamty, 126, 181, 187, 189, 199,

200, 202-204, 220, 248, 262, 270,

273, 320-321
Chu Hi, 139-141
Chung, General, 204, 225
Church nation, 109, 242
Civihzahon of China, 4, 9, 14, 10, 208
Clans, 63

Classes of society, (JO
Classics, 67, 85, 110, 123, 133, 138,

141, 167, 213
Clay figures, 64
Climate, 145, 154
Clocks, 160
Clothes, 22, 145

Cochin China, 154

Cock and hen, 154

Cohong, 198

Coinage, 143, 279

Coleridge, S T., 152

Colors, 91, 94

Columbus, 158

Comedy, 163

Comets, 194, 195

Commercial invasions, 233, 243, 260,

263

Communalism, 54, 62
Communists, 290, 291, 304, 305
Compass, 106, 143, 160
Confession of sin, 110
Confucianism, 139-142, 165, 307,

314, 315, 320
Confucius, 8, 77, 89, 108, 109, 127,

135, 242

Conger, Hon E H , 269
Conservatives, 247-249, 258-260
Constitutions, 173, 286
Coohe, 196
Cormorants, 4
Cotton, 4, 144, 145
Counterfeiters., 143
Court, 124, 270, 281, 282
Cranes, 142
Ci cation, 227
Crookedness, 86
Crops, 137
Cuba, 210

Currency, 143, 213-214, 279
Ciuhuig, Hon Caleb, 201
Customs, 68
Customs (icvenue), 226, 229, 247,

296
Czar, 150, 170

Dalny, 276

Dam ma See Dharma

Daughters, 78

Dead, rites ior the, 188

Degrees, 202

Democracy, 63

Demons, 87

Do Qumcey, 191

~wcy, Admiral, 271

_>haima, 181, 132

Diagrams, 93

Dialects, 27

Diclionanes, 186

Dikes, 110

Diplomatic relations, 100, 198, 214,

218, 2'il, 273
Discoveries, 100
Dogmas, 82, 83
Domains, 59
Dominicans 187
Dowagoi, KniprchR, 1286, 247, 270
Dragon, 5, 12, 17- '20, 55, 50, 90, U8,
ii9, 130, y*l), ii46

INDEX

331

Drama, 142, 163

Di earns, 56, 89, 202

Di ought, 26, GO

Drugs, 119

Drum and cock, 49

Dual sovcieignty, 234, 239

Durgan, Manehu clnet, 178

Dutch m China, 180, 181, 185

Dying with the master, 03, 64

Dynasties, 172

Earthquakes, 156

East India Company, 194, 195, 198

Eclipses, 55

Economic invasion, 333, 203

Education, 258, 317-319

Elements, 95, 96

Elephants, 154, 155

Elgin, Lord, 14, 219

Eliw of life, 86, 120, 131, 141

Elliot, Charles, 198

Embassies, 124, 185, 230

Embroidery, 40, 11

Emigrants, 10, 218, 220

Empeioi, 57, 61, 65, 67, 108-110,

122, 174, 175
Empress, 125, 170
Empress? Dowager, 236, 217, 257,

259, 260, 281
Encyclopredias, 167, 186
English in China, 192-19*
Etiquette, 95, 182
Europeans, .179-1 83, 208, 209
European civilisation, 13
Ever Victorious, Army, 222, 223
Ever White Mountains, 174, 175
Evolution, 3-6, 28, 12, 215-247
Examinations, 110, 217, 248, 258,

273, 317
Extra-tomtoriahty, 194, 223, 295,

298, 305
Eyes. 188

Face, 206, 207, 208, 209, 238, 2-12,

280

Factory, 194, 199, 210
Fairies, 104, 117-120
Fairy laic*, 7, 44, 56
Falconry, 4, 160
Family, 15, 60, 62, 187
Fnmmo, 121, 314
Fashion, 164

Feudalism, 67-72, 84, 150. 184
Fiction, 103, 161
Filial piety, 15, 58, 59
Filibustering, 2-13
Fillmore, President, 243
Finger nails, 44
Fire-crackers, 4, 64, 65, 196
Fire making, 45
Fishes, 136
Fishing, 149 130

Five, in categories, 94, 95

Flags, 1 1, 56, 193, 105, 207, 210, 211,

212, 226, 227, 211, 245, 240, 267
Flax, 144

Flight of Tartar tribe, 190, 191
Floods, 26, 28, 53, 314
Flowers, 76

Folk-lore, 117-120, 128, 129, 161
Foo Chow, 244, 2-16
Foot binding, 5, 104, 165
Foote, Captain, 211, 212
Foieign devils, 180
Foieigners, 179-183, 189
Foiest of Pencils, 125
Foiests, 5, 25, 26, 145
Foimosa, 181, 186, 231, 236, 241, 245
Forts, 193, 200, 241, 215
Fortune tellers, 92, 96, 97
Foi tunes in America, 195
Franciscans, 187
Freedom of conscience, 227, 248
French m China, 213, 214, 219, 220,

231-233, 242, 265
Fuel, 26
Fu Hi, 6
Funcials, 61, 65

Game well, Rev F D , 263

Gazette, the official, 125

Genealogy, 173

Genghis Khan, 149-151, 158

Gcoige III, 193

George IV, 198

Geimans m China, 211, 270, 272

Germany, 182, 295

Gunts, 46

Giils, 78

God, idea of, 114, 1S8, 187

Gods, 6, 48, 65, 113, 114, 133

Gold, 38, 39

Goldfish, 136

Goose, as messenger, 40

Gordon, General, 222-226

Gorges, 24, 27

Gourd, 128

Giand Canal, 169

Grand Khan, 146, 147, 154, 156, 158

Grand Lama, 29, 193

Great Britain, 241, 242, 276, 310, 311

Great Wall, 150, 169, 302, 303

Griffins, 197 ,

Gun powder, 160

Gurkas, 192

Gutzlaff, Mr , 209

Hair, SI, 60, 175-177, 182, 183, 203,

223,
Han dynasty, 11, 98-100, 115, 131,

162

Han-lin Academy, 125
Hanoi, 243
Han Sin, 98, 69

332

INDEX

Hare, 118

Harem, 75, 121, 241

Han is, Hon Townsend, 267

Hart, Sir Eoberl, 226, 247

Hawaii, 195

Hay, Hon. John, 69, 272

Head gear, 31, 177, 183, 203, 223

Head hunters, 234, 235

Head removal, a*il, 224

Heaven, 138, 174, 187

Herd-boy star, 106

Heroes, 43

Hia dynasty, 11

Hideyoshi, 171, 172

Hindoos, 127, 131, 106

History of China, 1S6

Hoio, 154

Holland, 169

Honan, 148, 152

Honesty, 206, 209, 226

Hong Kong, 201, 207, 220, 257, 311

Horsemen, 146, 117, 149, 150, 164

Horses, 34, 38, 68, 146, 162, 179

Hospital corps, 251, 252

Hsingan Province, 308

Hsu Shi Chang, 286

Hu Shih, 819

Hudson, Henry, 159

Hui, 248

Hungary, 151

Huns, 100, 102

Hurka River, 175

Ideals, 43, 44, 106

Ideographs, 10

Idols, 197

Ih, 192, 228, 237

Illiteracy, 20

Imaginary beings, 17-20, 89, 90-92

Imagination, 162-166

Immigrants to Ameiion,, 32

Immortality, 120, 128, 131, 141

Imperialism, 84

Impersonality, 62

Incarnations, 141

Indemnities, 1 17, 148, 214, 230, 237,

245, 248, 273

India, 105, 106, 161, 163, 108, 238
Indians, 175, 191, 192
Indigo, 145
Individualism, 62
Infants, 232
Insm reel ions, 178, 195
International law, 84, 217, 236, 250,

251, 267

Interpreters, 224
Ironclads, 172
Islam, US

Isolation of China, 23-25
Italians, 158, 159, 161, 163, 257, 265,

270
Ito, Prince, 240 I

Jade, 4, 117-120

Japan, 15, 69, 86, 122, 124, 132, 1(57,

168, 169, 237-240, 242, 275-278,
279, 283, 286-287, 294, 296, 209,
300-305, 311, 315-316

Japanese, 15, 119, 152, 153, 161, 162,

169, 249-254, 268, 269, 276-278,
299

Japanese art, 128, 129, 130
Japanese smile, 64
Jealousy, 75, 102
Jesuits, 177
Joss, 14, 190
Journalism, 320

Kabul, 149

Kai Feng, 135, 147, 157, 205

Kalmuck Tartars, 190, 191

Kang Hi, 185, 186, 189

Kang Yu Wei, 257

Karakorum, 151

Keelung, 245

Kempfi, Admiral Louis, 213, 265-

267, 271, 272
Kwo Chan, 257
Kidnapping, 210
Kien Lung, 192
Kilm, 90

Kim Ok Kmn, 251
Kin Tartars, 146-148, 149
Kites, 4
Ki Tsze, 67

Know-Nothings, Chinese, 261
Komura, Baion, 280
Korea, 83, 121, 122, 124, 167, 169-

172, 177, 2SO, 231, 237-239, 341,

249-254, 278, 280, 294
Koreans, 67, 68, 83, 153, 169-172,

176

Kowlun, 220
Kow Slung, 250
Kow-tow, 83, 185, 193, 218
ECoKUiRn, 178, 181
Kublai, 152, 158, 171
Kuldja, 228, 237
Kum Fn, 211, 212
xung, Prince, 219, 220, 221, 226, 231
vuomintting, S88, 200, 202, 301, 806
Cutub Miiiar* 161
Kwang Si, 236, 247, 257-259, 281

ibor, 44

^nmism, 141, 192
.and, 70, 71

ndsoape, 24, 25

ng, Captain, 246
.angson, 243, 244, 245

, 2a, 27, 49, 50, 62, 142, 179

, 80, 141, 146
'Aim names, 8, 76
sundry men, 176

INDEX

333

Law, 03, 199

League of Nations, 295-296, 303

Legations, 238, 263, 267, 270

Legendaty age, 49

Leggc, Di J B,73, 73

Lemon, 13S

Levant, U S. S., 211

Liao Tung, 121, 135, 173

Liao Yang, 177

Libraries, 124, 125, 136, 107

Life, value of, 217

Lighthouses, 226

Lights, 38

Li Hung Chang, 205, 222, 224, 236,

238, 240, 241, 248, 272
Lin, Commissioner, 199
Linen, 144
Litanies, 171

Liteiati, 81, 85, 88, 111, 112, 247
Literature, 54, 103, 135, 142, 162,

167, 108
Livadia, 237
Li Yuan Hung, 285
Loadstone Gateway, 87
Loess, 25
Lolos, 37

Longevity, 58, 120
Long-IIaned Rebels, 203, 206, 222
Loo Choo, 18, 234, 236
Looms, 144

Looting of Peking, 272
Lost tribes, 160
Lovers, 74
Loyally, 71
"Lusiad," the, 180

Macao, 177, 180, 181, 195, 199, 210
Macartney, Lord, 193
Magical powers, 861, 262
Magncl ic needle, 105
Magnolia, 125
Magpie, 100, 174, 175
Mahometans 11, 113, 160, 227, 228
Manchukuo, 302, 303, 308
Manchuria, 81, 3fc, 173-175, 275-

278, 300-304, 307, 308
ManchiM, 31, 32, 67, 161, 173-188,

280. 282, 283, 286
Manchus and Chinese, 183, 184
Mundui in, 100, 319
Mangu, 152
Man in the Moon, 118
Manicuring, 14
Manufacturing, 310-311, 313

Marble, 108

Marco Polo, 158, 160

Margary, IVIr A. B , 236

Marriage, 96, 131, 47

Mars, 5

Martin, Dr W. A P., 77, 78

Masculine principle, 120

Mathematics, 247

McCalla, Captain, 264

McKmley, President, 272

Meat eating, 182

Medicine, 131

Memorials, 64, 225

Mencius, 8, 89

Mei chants, 69, 184

Miao-tse, 191

Migrations, 30

Mikados, 120, 154, 159, 170, 171

Military, 138, 146-150, 173, 184

Milky Way, 106, 107, 144, 166

Ming dynasty, 133, 143, 157, 167,

178-180

Ming Yong Ik, 239
Missions, 181, 201, 222, 263, 268, 317,

320-321

Mob violence, 231, 232
Moguls, 161
Monasteries, 127
Money, 66, 143, 160, 279
Mongol empeiors, 141
Mongolia, 30, 31, 157, 308
Mongols, 126, 144, 116-166, 277
Monks, 131, 158
Moon, 56, 117-120, 165, 166
Moral suasion, 184
Morality plays, 104
Morning glory, 234
Mothers, 52
Mountains, 130, 166
Movies, 320

Mukden, 150, 173, 177, 276, 277
Mule, 128
Munitions, 310
Music, 51, 162, 168
Muslin, 144

Mythical monsters, 5, 14, 80, 90, 94,
Mythology, 5, 11, 19, 20, 147
Myths, 7, 19, 20, 47

Nagasaki, 172

Names of China, 9, 10, 106, 145, 150,

169, 213, 234

Names of families, 03, 156
Nankeen, 145, 148
Nanking, 139, 148, 149, 169, 200,

204, 205, 222, 225, 289, 290
Napier, Lord, 198
Nara, 129

Nation, the, 116, 172, 845, 246, 247
National consciousness, 218, 216,

247, 312

National legislature, 221
Navy, 226, 245, 252
Nepaul, 192
tfostonans, 125, 126
Neutrality, 242
'New Life" movement, 203
New York, 194
"Nme-Powcr Treaty," 299, 303

334

INDEX

Nmgpo, 180, 200, 223
Nmguta, 175
Nobility, 135
North China, 10
North East Passage* 159
Northmen, 171
Novels, 39, 112, 162
Numerals, 91
Nursery of nations, 145

Odors, 179, 182, 210

Ogotai, 151

Okakura, 133

Okinawa, 234, 235

Okubo, 235

"Open Door," 294, 304

Opening of ports, 201

Opium, 199, 200, 208, 210, 214, 310

Oriental civilization, IS

Orthodoxy, 109, 139-142

Ox-tail banner, 149, 150, 152

Pageants, 114, 164

Pagodas, 4, 106. 127, 168

Pajhua, 319

Painting, 136

Pan, 114

Panku, 6, 45, 46

Paper money, 56, 160

Paradise, 29

Parker, Prof E H., 36

Parkes, Sir Harry, 206-210, 219

Patriotism, 200, 218, 259, 260, 267

Peace emblem, 49

Peach Garden Oath, 113

Peach tree, 104

Pear Garden, 162

Pearl River, 244

Pearls, 52, 54, 56, 117

Pehtang, 215, 218

Pei-ho River, 200, 214, 218, 265

Peiping, 290

Peking, 148, 157, 168, 178, 182, 189,
190, 214, 263-273, 290

Pelicans, 80

Pencils, 125

PeopJe, "the," 70, 183

People's Party, 285, 288 (also sec
under "Kuomintang")

Peiry, Commodore M C., 216, 237,

267

Persecution, 189, 227
Persia, 152, 163
Pescadores, 180

Peter the Great, 162, 189, 875
Philadelphia, 196
Philosophy. 10, 106, 134
Phoenix, 90, 91
Photographs, 231, 232, 248
Pictures, 137
Pilgrims, 105, 127
Ping Yang, 68, 124, 172, 230, 252

Piracy, 171, 195

Plums, 75

Poe's Raven, 77

PoeLry, 73, 74, 76, 78, 30, 81, 107,

119, 142, 166
Policy of the United States, 266,

268, 269, 272
Policy of Russia, 275
Polk, President, 201
Pongee, 31
Pope, the, 151, 187
Poppy, 214

Population, 25, 26, 169
Populism, 137-139
Porcelain, 4, 104, 186, 160, 178
Poit Arthur, 241, 252, 257, 276, 277
Port Hamilton, 241
Portsmouth, N H , 278
Portsmouth, U S S , 211-213
Portuguese m China, 179, 180, 181,

190

Position of woman, 75, 76
Possession by spirits, 61
Praise, 21
Prayer, 173
Prestcr John, 160
Prince Ch'un, 282
Printing, 126, 160
Prisons, 199
Property, 54, 199
Provcibs, 114, 123, 137, 156, 188
Public school army, 277
Public works, 138, 167-169
Punishments, 95, 103, 273
Purple Mountain, 289
Pu Yi, Henry, 282, 302

Queue, 4, 8, 31, 36, 175-177

Race pride, 218

Radio, 320

Railway*), 13, 20, 21, 26, 233, 243,

263, 275, 280, 312
Ram, 18

Rat, as symbol, 79
Raven, in Chinese poetry, 77
Reaction, 249
Rebels, 66
Red Eyebrows, 110
Reforms, 103, 245, 249, 257-259,

281-286
is, 186

ly, Captain, 274

Religion, 60-62, 140, 320
Renascence, 293, 321
Republic, The, 283-293
Revolution, 109, 282 ff.
Rhetoric, 170
Rheumatism, 131, 132
Rhine, Li*. 148
Ricci, 181
Rice, 4, 263

INDEX

335

Riots, 201, 248, 261-204

Rm Kiu, 18, 234, 230

Rivers, 24

Rock carvings, 127

Roger, 181

Roman Catholic missions, 187, 180,

231-233, 4JW, 321
Romances, 112, 142, 158
Roman Empire, 102, 170
Romans, 151
Root, Hon Elihu, 272
Routes, 105, 143
Roze, Admiral, 230
Russia, IS, 80, 39, 150, 151, 161, 162,

190, 227, 257, 268, 305-307
Russians, 30, 121, 185, 190, 214, 268,

209, 288, 804, 305-307
Russo-Japanese War, 15, 121, 123,

275-278

Sabbath day, 118

Sacred associations, 196, 197

Sacred Edict, 186

SacriBces, 68, 168

Saigon, 213

Sailors, 130

Samurai, 184

San Ciano, 181

San Jacmto, U. S. S , 211

San Mm Chit /, 288

Schnll, Adam, 185

Scholars, 315

Schools, 112

Sculpluic, 142

Secret societies, 156, 157, 176, 19i,

261

Seoul, 171, 237 -239
Seymour, Admiral, 264
Shamanism, 86
Shanghai, 200, 201, 214, 220, 222,

251, 297, 302-304
Shang Ti, 187

Shantung, 29, 149, 261, 262, 299, 300
She King, 7S
Sheep, 68
Shoes, 143
Shop signs, 132
Shun, 52-54, 58
Sian Fu, 270
Sikh lancers, 218, 219
Silk, 4, 160
Silkworms, 81, 144
Silver, 143, 279
Sinim, 9
Smkiang, 309
Slavery, 105, 167
Socialism, 187-140
Social life, 73, 78, 134, 136
Social system, 23, 122, 156
Soldiers, 184

Son of Heaven, 67, 109, 170
Sorcerers, 112

South China, 10, 26, 41, 183, 186

South Chinese, 183, 186, 203, 285

Sovereignty, 208, 233

Spaniards in China, 180

Spirits, possession by, 61

Spoliation of China, 255, 256, 260

Squeezing, 108

SUis and Stupes, 195

Starry Weaver Maiden, 44

Steam, 145

Storks, 130

Story-telling, 163

Streets, 86

Students in America, 316

Students in Japan, 315-316

Sui dynasty, 117, 121

Summer Palace, 219

Sung dynasty, 135, 148, 152

Sungaii, 175

Sun Yat Sen, 282, 288, 289, 306,

307, 321

Survey of the empire, 186
Su Wu, 40
Sycee, 143
Symbols, 164
Sze Ma Kwang, 136

Tablets, 64, 126, 108

Tai Pings, '20 1 2-205, 222-225, 265

Taku lot Is, 200, 214, 215-217, 218,

204, 205, 206, 207, 273
Talien Wan, 257
Tamerlane, 101
Tang dynasty, 10, 122, 123, 124, 125,

165

Taoism, 128, 130, 131, 139, 140, 111
Taiitf, 214, 290, 305
Tartars, 33-38, 100, 117, 304, 306
Taitary, 33

Taxation, 135, 137-139
Tea, 4, 130-133, 160, 191
Teak, 154

Telegraphs, 233, 244, 245, 246, 312
Telephones, 312
Temperaments, 95, 96
Temperance, 131
Temples, C, 00
Tennyson, 10
Tenures of land, 70, 71
Theatres, 162, 163
Three Kingdoms, 112, 113, 115
Three People's Principles, 288
Tibet, 24, 29, 141, 192
Tibetans, 124, 125
Tides, 56
Tien Tf.m, 193, 205, 214, 220, 231,

232, 235, 264, 260, 369
Tiger, 57
Tiles, 168
Tobacco, 132, 310
Togo, Admiral, 154, 250
Toleration, 159, 214, 220, 227, 248

336

INDEX

Tombs, 95, 168

Tong Hakj,, 250, 251

Tong Kmg, 243, 245

Ton&uie, 176

Topknots, 173

Tortoise, 90, 01, 92

Tiade, 102-105. 301, 304, 310-313

Transmigration of s>ouls, 141

Transmutation ot znctal&, 38, 39,

103, 104

Transportation, 312
Treaties, 201, 206, 214, 220, 230, 237,

240, 243, 250, 252-254, 270
Tribute, 83, 154, 193, 200, 215
Truth, 206, 207, 208, 224, 241, 279
Tseng, Marquis, 244
Tfain dynasty, 11
Tso, General, 228

Tsung-h Yamen, 221, 234, 207, 273
Tsuiuga, 280

Turkoman*,, 122, 124, 126
Tuiks,, 30, 160

Twenty-One Demands, 204, 296'
Type*, 126

Unicorn, 90

Unions, 307, 313

United States and China, 195, 196,

211-213, 266, 268, 269, 273, 303,

311

Unity of China, 84, 85, 88, 284-285
Universal sovereignty, 234, 237,

249, 251

Universities, 317
Uzume, 91

Vassals, 83, 170, 171, 250
Vci biest, Father, 185
Vladivostok, 280
Von Kettoler, Baron, 205, 273
Von Walden,ee, Count, 272

Wade, Sir Thomas, 2S7

Wall, the Chinese, 85

Wan Li, 181

Wang, 137

Wan-hsicn Incident, 297

War, 181

War, art of, 123

War Lords, 287

Ward, General, 222

Waid, lion J E , *16, 218

Washington Conference, 299

Washington, George, 2, 207, 271

Weaver Maiden, 44, 106, 144

Weaving, 144

Wcathei , 95

Wei-hai-wei, 241, 352, $57, 270

Westein civilmilion. 100

Western Uoyal Mother, 10 1, 118

Wc&t .India Company, l<)5

Wlmmpoa, ^07

Whang-ho, 27, S8, 53, 65, 106, 110,

148

Whang Ti, 51, 52, 82, 91, 208, 234
Wheelbarrows, 115
While Lily Society, 156, 195
Willamette, 211
Williams, Dr S Wells, 270
Wine, 10
Winter, 145, 162
Witchcralt, 14, 61, 86
Wojm, 170
Woman, 75, 76, 115, 119, 127, 144,

164, 165, 177, 188, 236
"Woodman, spare thut tree," 76
Words of loieign origin, 119
WotldWai,295
Woi&hip, <0

Writing, 11, 12, 48, 91, ISC
Wu, Minister $208, 269
Wu Ti, 103, 104

Xavier, Fiancih, 181

Yakoop Beg, 2S8

Yalu Iti\e, 121, 252, 277

Yang-tse, 25, 100, 204, 205, 214, 322

Yao, 52-54

Yntoi, 161, 277

Yeh, Commissioner, 207, 210, 212,
213

Yellow Empcroi, 51, 5$
Yellow Rivei tier Wlmng-ho
Yen, James Y C . 319
Yin and } urig, 93
Yoshitsune, 150
Yu, 65. 66, 91

Yuan dynasty, 15. 15JJ, 103
Yuan Slu kui, 'J38, JiB
Yung C^heng, 190
Yung Wing, 249

Yunnan, 104, a 14, 227. 237, 24S,
246